Good News! Word has it that Xolo Maridueña will be making a return as Blue Beetle in Man of Tomorrow, the upcoming sequel to Superman. It will be Xolo’s first appearance as the DC Comics hero since the 2023 film directed by Ángel Manuel Soto.
Maridueña joins a cast led by David Corenswet as Superman, with Nicholas Hoult returning as Lex Luthor and Lars Eidinger playing Brainiac. The ensemble also includes Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, and Adria Arjona as Maxima. Aaron Pierre rounds out the announced cast.
Principal photography began in April in Atlanta and is scheduled to continue through the summer.
The casting arrives amid uncertainty over the character’s future elsewhere at Warner Bros. Discovery. A Blue Beetle animated series from Miguel Puga, Warner Bros. Animation, and DC Studios was announced in 2024 but hasn’t received an update since. The project’s prospects dimmed after HBO Max said last year it would prioritize adult and family programming, scaling back children’s content it no longer considered a strong performer. The animated series had been aimed at younger viewers, a demographic that makes up a significant portion of the character’s fanbase.
Maridueña starred as Jaime Reyes, the third character to carry the Blue Beetle name in a legacy that stretches back nearly nine decades. The original hero, archaeologist Dan Garrett, was created by Charles Wojtkowski for Fox Comics in 1939, making Blue Beetle one of the oldest superheroes still in circulation. The character bounced between publishers over the years before landing at Charlton Comics. It was there that legendary Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko reinvented the mantle in 1966 with Kord, a gadget-driven inventor with no powers of his own. DC acquired the Charlton stable of heroes in the 1980s and folded Kord into its universe, where he became a fan favorite through his run with the Justice League. His death in the pages of 2005’s Countdown to Infinite Crisis cleared the way for Jaime, a teenager from El Paso, created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner. Jaime debuted in 2006 as the first version of the hero bonded to the alien scarab’s high-tech armor, and his working-class Mexican American roots quickly made him one of DC’s most popular legacy characters.
In the film, Jaime is a recent college graduate who returns home as he weighs his next steps. He takes a job alongside his younger sister Milagro, played by Belissa Escobedo, and clashes with Victoria Kord, played by Susan Sarandon, after coming to the defense of Kord’s niece Jenny, played by Bruna Marquezine. The conflict escalates when Jaime unknowingly comes into possession of an alien scarab capable of transforming its host into Blue Beetle. The scarab rarely bonds with a carrier, but it accepts Jaime, derailing Kord Industries’ ambitions and setting the unemployed pre-law graduate on a path toward the fight of his life.
Warner Bros. hasn’t disclosed the scope of Maridueña’s role in Man of Tomorrow or the film’s release date.
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