‘The strike needed to happen’: ‘Blue Beetle’ director talks ‘heartbreaking’ timing of his DC movie’s release

Blue Beetle director Angel Manuel Soto has given a measured response about the film’s release in the midst of the combined WGA/SAG strike. Although Soto wishes the strike could have occurred after Blue Beetle‘s release, he states that he understands the need for protest and committed himself to furthering the cause.

Soto conceded that he was missing his cast during the promotional tour — not only because of their wonderful company but because of what Blue Beetle represents. As the first live-action superhero film to center on a Latino lead and on the Latino experience, Soto wished that the predominantly Latino cast was there to celebrate their achievements.

But Soto also explained the need for the strikes, which have lasted throughout the summer. “I wish it happened after the release of our movie, but at the end of the day, there’s no better time than now,” Soto said. Elaborating that the strikes will build a better future, the director went on to call his cast “heroic” for their efforts. He further said that their sacrifice is giving him the energy needed to complete the press tour on his own.

Happily, the cast has managed to experience some of Soto’s joy. Though many Blue Beetle cast members have been spotted walking the picket lines and all of them have avoided speaking about the movie directly, they still keep in touch. Soto stated that he speaks with the film’s star, Xolo Maridueña, and the film’s female lead, Bruna Marquezine, “all the time.” In fact, the three of them are all in a group chat with co-stars Belissa Escobedo and George Lopez. Soto also recently caught dinner with Damián Alcázar while in Mexico. And Susan Sarandon has, reportedly, just been lovely — not that that’s a shock.

With Soto, a member of the Directors Guild of America — which is not participating in the strike after reaching a deal with the AMPTP back in May — practically being the only prominent crew member allowed to comment on the film, much of the movie’s promotional tour has been placed on his shoulders. Unfortunately, even before the strikes began, Blue Beetle never really received much promotion, especially when compared to some of DC’s other films like The Flash, which had been tracking lower than Blue Beetle in every metric for quite a while. Though it’s recently been confirmed that the character will continue on in James Gunn’s DCU, the movie’s box office numbers are tracking poorly, and current estimates place the movie at a $30 million opening weekend.

An underwhelming box office is not just disappointing because of the hard work that went into Blue Beetle — though that is hugely disappointing in and of itself, especially given Soto’s easily-apparent passion and excitement for the movie — but also because of what it could mean for Latino representation in cinema. Hollywood executives have a bad track record with diversity; an underwhelming performance for a movie that features a minority-led cast usually means that executives will be less likely to greenlight projects like this in the future. Blue Beetle‘s performance is not just a reflection of the market surrounding superhero films, it could also very well affect future Latino-led projects.

That last statement may cause some eye-rolling, but that’s the unfortunate reality of the industry. It absolutely wouldn’t be the first time that Hollywood takes the wrong lesson from a movie. Take Catwoman and Elektra for example. Those movies did poorly because they weren’t good adaptations of the characters and had little care put into them, but their failures at the box office meant that audiences wouldn’t see another superheroine helm her own movie for 14 more years. Ben Affleck’s Daredevil flopped around the same time, and the character still received his own show on Netflix quicker than that.

Blue Beetle‘s situation during the strikes is complex; the need for protest is indisputable, especially in this situation, but it’s a real bummer that the cast can’t participate in the promotion of a film that could mean a lot to the Latino community. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is behaving abominably and its treatment of the workers that toil to make the industry work could be called exploitative. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA both deserve fair and equitable deals so that this strike may end.