Last year, the Blue Beetle live-action movie premiered to critical acclaim, but low box office. Luckily, under James Gunn, DC Studios is not abandoning the character of Jaime Reyes. Via Deadline, we’ve learned that Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios are working on a Blue Beetle animated series. Miguel Puga (The Casagrandes) will serve as series showrunner and director, with Cristian Martinez on board as writer. The live-action Blue Beetle‘s director and writer, Angel Manuel Soto and Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, will executive produce. Blue Beetle centers on young Mexican-American El Paso native Jamie Reyes, who bonds with an alien scarab and becomes the heroic Blue Beetle.
The new Blue Beetle series will build upon the movie, but tell its own story. It seems they’ve approached cast members from the film to reprise their roles. There’s no official word yet though if star Xolo Maridueña is returning as the titular hero. However, DC Studios head James Gunn has said recently that Xolo’s version of Blue Beetle would be a part of his DCU. Could he be talking about the animated series? Gunn has said that much of the future DC animated output would tie into the live-action films and TV shows. This was something DC was often negligent about in the past.
The live-action Blue Beetle movie was created for the Max streaming service, but then bumped up to theatrical after positive test screenings. Apparently, Blue Beetle performed well enough on streaming that Warner Bros. still sees potential in the franchise. The first film left many dangling plot threads, so maybe a cartoon is as good a venue as any to wrap those up. Blue Beetle has appeared in animated form several times already. He first showed up in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, then Young Justice, Justice League Action, and several Teen Titans animated films. So we concur that it’s about time he got an animated show of his own.