Blue Beetle star Xolo Maridueña has spoken about the DC Universe movie’s setting and why it was changed from El Paso, Texas.
Why was Blue Beetle’s setting changed from El Paso to Palmera City?
In a video interview with Fandango, the cast of Blue Beetle discussed various aspects of the upcoming superhero film. When the topic of the film’s location, Palmera City, came up, Maridueña went into detail about why the hero “deserves his own city.”
“First off, with Palmera City, it’s a city made specifically for our movie and for this storyline that we’re making with Blue Beetle,” Maridueña explained. “Originally, the character takes place in El Paso, Texas, and we decided to make it to Palmera … Blue Beetle deserves his own city, right? Batman has Gotham, Superman has Metropolis, and we wanted to have a world that felt like it was reminiscent of the culture that Jaime grew up in.
“It has the sound of a place like Rio or the smell of Boyle Heights or the people of an El Paso, but it’s a metropolis of Latinos, and I think it helped bring the story from like an American story to a worldwide kind of picture.”
You can watch the full interview on YouTube below:
The film will release on Friday, August 18, 2023, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is directed by Angel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings) from a screenplay adapted by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Miss Bala). Cobra Kai breakout Xolo Maridueña stars in Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios’ first stand-alone Latino-led superhero movie as Jaime Reyes.
