RUMOR MILL: This information is STRICTLY RUMOR for now, so take it with a huge grain of salt!
Twitter user Daniel Ritchman has announced that Warner Brothers is moving forward with a live-action ‘Blue Beetle’ series, featuring the newest version of the character, who is secretly Latino teen Jaime Reyes, for HBO Max, however, at this time, Ritchman’s Twitter account has been suspended, so absolutely take this with a grain of salt. But on the plus side, HBO Max is confirmed to be developing three DC Comics-based shows, ‘Strange Adventures’ (a sci-fi anthology featuring Adam Strange), a ‘Green Lantern’-based series, and the comedy, ‘DC Super Hero High’.
In addition, the streaming service will offer an impressive slate of DC movies— a more impressive slate than DC Universe, for that matter– and it will also air ‘Doom Patrol’, in tandem with DC Universe, which was the outlet for which the series was created. So clearly, the service is leaning heavily into DC, and in particular, original DC content.
This version of Blue Beetle first appeared in the 2006 comic book ‘Infinite Crisis’ #3. He was created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner. Jaime Reyes was an average teenager until a mysterious scarab amulet fused itself to his spine, which can expand into a super-strong suit of armor that grants him abilities like energy blasts, flight, and super strength, among others.
There have been rumblings of a ‘Blue Beetle’ movie as part of the WB’s DC Comics film franchise for some time now. In November 2018, it was announced that Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (‘Miss Bala’) would write the screenplay with Zev Foreman (‘Colossal’) acting as executive producer. Soon after that, in January last year, a rumor emerged that time traveler, Booster Gold would make an appearance. Before that, Greg Berlanti was reportedly working on a ‘Blue Beetle/Booster Gold’ movie, but that version would have featured Ted Kord, Jaime Reyes’ predecessor.
It’s possible that the plans for the movie were converted to those for a series. Or both projects could be moving forward, as there are a few duplicate characters in the movies and TV shows, like Henry Cavill’s film Superman and Tyler Hoechlin’s TV version. There are also separate TV and movie versions of The Flash and Black Canary among others.
Previously, Jaren Brandt Bartlett portrayed Blue Beetle on an episode of ‘Smallville’. The character was heavily featured on ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’, and ‘Young Justice’ and has appeared in other animated projects.
Would you watch a ‘Blue Beetle’ live-action TV series?
