The team behind new DC movie Blue Beetle is having to make a change. While Sharon Stone had been in talks to play a key role, she didn't end up in the part. Never fear, though, as Susan Sarandon will play Victoria Kord instead.
Blue Beetle, which has Angel Manuel Soto in the director's chair and Cobra Kai's Xolo Maridueña in the lead – a step forward in terms of Latino representation in DC movies – will also star George Lopez, Raoul Max Trujillo and Harvey Guillén.
Sarandon is taking on the role of Victoria Kord, a new character created for the film. But with that surname, she's already rumoured to be the wife of Ted Kord, a previous Blue Beetle in the comics (see the history of the character below).
Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer wrote the script for the film, which will adapt the more recent version of the Beetle character. Originally created by artist Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski and writer Will Eisner for Fox Comics' Mystery Men Comics in 1939, Blue Beetle was introduced as Dan Garret, a vigilante who fought crime using powers gained from chemical compound Vitamin 2-X, though that origin was later retconned to an archeologist with a suit and abilities derived from the alien Khaji Da scarab living weapon. He was succeeded by tech whizz Ted Kord, first appearing in Charlton Comics (which bought Fox and was itself later taken over by DC).
The Jaime Reyes version, a creation of Keith Giffen, John Rogers and Cully Hamner for 2006's Infinite Crisis Issue 5, spawned a titular title two months later in May of that year. In his story, Reyes discovered the Blue Beetle scarab on the way home from school with two of his best friends Paco and Brenda, half-buried in a disused lot. Reyes took the scarab home, curious as to what it might be. That night, the scarab came alive, and grafted itself to the base of Jaime’s spine, and provided him with a suit of extraterrestrial armour, which can be modified to enhance his speed and strength, as well as to create weapons, wings and shields.
Blue Beetle, which had originally been planned as an HBO Max release, will now arrive in cinemas on 18 August next year.