‘Blue Beetle’ Director Completely Changes Tune, Asks Moviegoers To Give Film A Chance After Mocking Them Over “Batman’s A Fascist” Line

John F. Trent |

Jul 6, 2023

Xolo Maridueña as Blue Beetle in Blue Beetle (2023), DC Studios

Blue Beetle director Angel Manuel Soto completely changed his tune and is now asking moviegoers to give the film a chance after he repeatedly mocked and derided them following the release of the film’s first trailer.

In the first trailer, it ended with George Lopez’s Uncle Rudy remarking, “Batman is a fascist.”

Numerous individuals took exception to the line with YouTuber Ryan Kinel criticizing it saying, “At the end, the Batman is fascist. This is pandering to these stupid f***ing 20 year-old free profile picture she/them don’t know what your f***ing gender is, don’t buy comics, don’t have money to go to movies. That’s who that f***ing s**t is pandering to.”

“‘Batman is a fascist.’ F*** off with that. That’s so stupid,” he declared.

Kinel’s criticism would be shared to Twitter by CBMovieFan who wrote, “George Lopez saying “Batman is a Fascist” has this mf riled up”

The user added, “I need more lines like that from the movie if they’re freaking out like this.”

Soto responded to the tweet with three laughing emojis and a Skeletor gif that reads, “Well, my job’s done.”

Soto would use a similar gif in response to another user pointing out that certain people were upset about the inclusion of the “Batman’s a fascist” line in the trailer.

Instead of Skeletor he used one of President Barack Obama dropping a microphone. He captioned it, “My job here is done.”

Now in an interview with MovieMaker, Soto is asking fans to give him and the film a chance. First, he attempted to explain the scene, “We always wanted to have fun with the way Rudy talks about other superheroes.”

He continued, “So to the people who got mad at it, give us a chance. We’re just trying to have fun with the characters that we love. And everybody in our movie loves Batman and Superman and Flash.”

“And of course, we have criticisms about all of them, as we all should,” Soto added. “But that doesn’t mean that we hate Batman. We love Batman.”

The film’s star Xolo Maridueña also shared his thoughts on the criticism to Lopez’s character describing Batman as a fascist, “F That!”

He elaborated, “Maybe Jaime and the audience don’t agree with Rudy, but you’re allowed to have your opinion. That’s okay.”

Maridueña then insinuated the line was included to rile up viewers, “If you felt some type of way about it, that was the point. So I think if you agree with it, if you don’t agree with it, it was placed there for a reason. And you know, all of the people who have their Batman shrines at home can keep them there and they don’t have to worry.”

Despite what Soto is saying now, his initial reaction is more than likely what he truly believes and he’s changed his tune because he’s seen box office bomb after box office bomb this year for DC films at the box office.

His job as a director might not be safe in James Gunn’s new plans for the DC Universe. Gunn has made it clear that the character of Blue Beetle is part of the DC Universe, but has not commented on whether the film is actually part of the DC Universe.

When Gunn first announced his DC Universe slate he said, “And then to move into a Blue Beetle, a fantastic film about a kid who is a marvelous part of the DCU.”

More recently speaking with Michael Rosenbaum, Gunn said, “The first DCU character, for sure, is Blue Beetle, and the first full DCU movie is Superman.”

Of note, Gunn says the character of Blue Beetle is the first DCU character, but that Superman: Legacy is the first DCU film. So the Blue Beetle film does not appear to be actually part of the DCU.

It’s also interesting that Maridueña seemingly had no qualms insinuating the line was done on purpose to provoke a reaction one way or the other. At least he had the stones to commit to what they did.

Something that Soto clearly did not do. As noted above he’s trying to claim that a person calling Batman a fascist actually loves Batman. It’s beyond absurd.