First Blue Beetle trailer released

DC’s busy 2023 has just started. Following the release of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the company is gearing up for The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. While there’s been a lot of attention directed at Barry Allen and Arthur Curry’s standalone tales, Blue Beetle has arguably been flying under the radar, a surprising development for a superhero movie starring an actor as recognizable in pop culture circles as Cobra Kai‘s Xolo Maridueña.

Directed by Angel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), the film focuses on Jaime Reyes after graduating college. As the movie’s synopsis states: “Recent college grad Jaime Reyes […] returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it. As he searches to find his purpose in the world, [Jaime] unexpectedly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology: the Scarab. 

After months of secrecy and somewhat scarce promotional material, the first trailer for the feature has arrived.

Watch the first Blue Beetle trailer

The movie will pit Jaime Reyes against Victoria Kord, played by Susan Sarandon. During an interview in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Sarandon provided details about her character (starting at the 0:22 mark):

"“I’m, of course, the bad guy. I’m the white military industrial complex, so I had a fabulous time, because there’s nothing better than being bad.”"

If the character’s name rings a bell, that’s because she is related to Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle in the comics. Unlike Jaime, however, whose Scarab grants him powers, Ted operates similarly to Batman, relying on gadgets as opposed to super powers.

The character of Victoria Kord was created for the film, but she made her DC Comics debut in 2022’s Blue Beetle: Graduation Day #2, where she was introduced as Ted Kord’s older sister.

Is Blue Beetle in the DCU?

With the DCEU coming to a close and the DCU on the horizon, there’s been speculation regarding which current and upcoming DC franchises will be included in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new franchise canon.

As part of Gunn and Safran’s DC slate announcement, The Suicide Squad director revealed that Blue Beetle could be connected to the new DCU:

"“I think that we’ve gotten lucky with the next four movies because we have Shazam, which leads into Flash, which resets everything, which then goes into Blue Beetle, which is totally disconnected (from everything that came before) and can be a part of the DCU, which goes into Aquaman, which leads into Superman: Legacy, our first big project.”"

It’s important to clarify, however, that Gunn seemingly did not concretely state that Blue Beetle would indeed be DCU canon. That is understandable, given that DC Studios could be waiting to see how the film performs before bringing it into the fold of its new live-action world.

Blue Beetle is scheduled to be released in theaters on August 18, 2023.

What do you think about the first Blue Beetle trailer? Do you think the film will become part of the DCU? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!