Blue Beetle director pitched a BANE origin story to DC

Blue Beetle director Angel Manuel Soto has revealed that he once pitched a Bane origin story to Warner Bros.

Soto became a sought-after director in Hollywood after his second feature film, Charm City Kings, won the special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020.

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Thereafter, he was invited into a meeting with Warner Bros./DC Studios to discuss a potential collaboration. Even though Blue Beetle eventually materialised from the conversations at that meeting, he was actually interested in a movie focusing on the supervillain Bane, famously played by Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises.

"You have to be prepared if they ask you what you want to do," Soto told The Hollywood Reporter.

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"And I’ve always wanted to explore the origin story of Bane. It’s super intriguing, especially where he comes from and the different topics that could be explored if we take into consideration that maybe he’s the hero of his own story. So it was very interesting to be able to talk about situations that have affected the Caribbean and Latin America for centuries through the character of Bane."

Soto says the Bane movie would have taken place in Matt Reeves' The Batman universe.

"So I came in with that idea, but that was Matt Reeves’ universe with The Batman, and I don’t know what’s going to happen now with this new regime," he continued.

"But that was my main attempt, and Galen was like, ‘Okay, that’s a good idea, but we wanted to pitch you something.’

"And that’s when he introduced the idea of Blue Beetle."

A Blue Beetle franchise

Blue Beetle was released this weekend and has already made around $43 million so far, and Soto is desperate for it to be a success so he can fulfil his dream of making a franchise.

“I don't think I would be here talking with you if I didn't think that way,” he told Yahoo when asked whether he wants to make a trilogy.

"The way the machine works, the movie needs to make money for them to put more money in, but for us, we've always seen it that way.

“We love the story so much. We believe in the product so much. We believe in an actor so much. We couldn't help but think about where his journey was going to go while we were creating this film. So is it wish fulfilment? Are we calling it out to the universe? Sure.”