New ‘Blue Beetle’ sneak peek accidentally calls out the biggest roadblock to success for DC’s most confusing movie

After a trilogy of disaster stories — that’s Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash, for those struggling to keep up — DC is in desperate need of a hit. Enter Blue Beetle, once developed as a streaming exclusive until it was deemed good enough to hit theaters instead. While box-office projections aren’t breaking the bank, at least early reactions are positive, despite falling prey to the most eye-rolling of DC tropes.

However, the big problem with Blue Beetle is that it exists in a strange no-space between the concluding SnyderVerse and the incoming rebooted DCU, as its status in either continuity is questionable at best. Ironically, that’s something that the latest preview clip from the movie has accidentally lampshaded.

The 26-second sneak peek sees Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) automatically protected by his alien superhero suit when under attack. When asked how he pulled that off, Jaime admits that he has no idea what he’s doing. Yup, that pretty much sums it up for DC’s most confusing movie.

Without being able to lean on its ties to the wider universe, which is something Shazam! 2 and The Flash did in a big way, what with the former spoiling its climactic Wonder Woman cameo and the latter featuring Supergirl and two out of three of its Batmen heavily in the trailers, Blue Beetle‘s marketing has been forced to take a different tack. Instead, promos have mostly championed its standalone nature and status as a fresh jumping-on point for moviegoers.

Given that the callbacks to prior movies didn’t exactly work out for 2023’s other DC releases, maybe this tactic will ultimately pay dividends, but at this juncture, it definitely feels like Warner Bros. isn’t exactly sure what to do with Blue Beetle, which crawls into theaters this Aug. 18, even if James Gunn believes Jaime Reyes is the first character in the DCU.