The Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle movie officially opens today. I keep seeing online that people are A) surprised that such a movie even exists, and B) predicting it to flop. Neither of those sentiments makes a bunch of sense to me because B) who doesn't obsessively pay attention to superhero movie news? and B) why would anyone cheer for any movie to flop?

Anyway, for those of us Booster boosters hoping for any sign of our favorite superhero in Blue Beetle, well, I haven't seen the movie yet myself, but I'll say that early reports are not encouraging.

And then there's this article at Inverse.com, an interview with director Ángel Manuel Soto:

"We always thought about this before James Gunn came in, but the fact that James Gunn loves Booster Gold and wants to do something with Booster Gold," Soto says. "We've always been setting up Ted Kord through the daughter, through the conversations and disappearance. Having that mid-credit scene is cool because we don't have to promise nor deny the possibilities of this collaboration."

"Neither promise nor deny" is never encouraging. I think this makes Soto a "Booster Tease."

So be forewarned: don't go see Blue Beetle expecting to see Ted Kord or Booster Gold. Go see it for all the Easter eggs (like the Bug!). Or go see it to send a message to Warner Bros that there's an audience for a sequel that (hopefully) pays off the very brief, very late mid end credits scene.

Or, maybe, go see it because you want to see it. That's such a crazy idea, it just might work.

Comments (5) | Add a Comment | Tags: angel manuel soto blue beetle inverse.com james gunn movies

Booster booster Marty directed me to this image on The App That Used To Be Twitter:

The whatever-it-is that-we're-calling-tweets-now implies that cocktail menu comes from "the #BlueBeetle after party", whatever that was. As you can (barely) see at the bottom of the list, there's a drink there named for Ted Kord's best buddy, Booster Gold.

The ingredients read "Mezcal, Ancho Piña Shrub, Grapefruit, Lime, Close Honey, Angostura." Full disclosure here: I'm an absolute teetotaler. I haven't had an alcoholic beverage since the Olympic Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia. (It was a Tom Collins.) So my working knowledge of cocktails is a little rusty, and I have no idea what that tastes like, much less what some of those ingredients even are.

But my Google skills are strong. Allowing for typos — "close" should be "clove" — and a brand-sponsored tequila substitution, it seems those ingredients combine to make what Difford's Guide calls a Mercado Roma and The Educated Barfly calls an Oaxacanite. Here's a picture of a good-looking presentation of those drinks on Instagram:

It's certainly the right color.

As for whether this hints at any role Booster might play in the movie... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I guess we'll find out when the film hits theaters on August 18.

Thanks for the drink, Marty.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle dilfordsguide.com drinks instagram.com marty mercado roma movies theeducatedbarfly.com twitter.com

Look, I can only take so much, and the constant social media and comic book "news" website rumors about who might or might not be playing Booster Gold in the not-yet-materialized James Gunn DCEU are about to break me. Chris Pratt? Aaron Paul? Jessie Plemons? Sure. Fine. Whatever.

Actors are the least of my problem. I'm still not even certain what I want from a Booster Gold movie, much less who I want to play him.

The first Harry Potter film proved to me that I need a movie to be notably different from the printed source material, otherwise why bother watching it? My imagination is pretty darn good, thank you very much. I don't think the published works of Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to name just two examples, are notably improved by their many cinema adaptations. That means I personally require the adventures of movie Booster to be different from Booster's comic book stories in some way.

But how different? I certainly don't need to see Blackguard or Black Beetle. I probably won't be too upset if Booster has a friend other than Ted Kord or a love interest other than Trixie Collins. But I suspect I will be disappointed not to see Skeets, very preferably as a gravity-defying golden football. Would a David "Booster" Gold who solves comedic supernatural mysteries while wearing a yellow raincoat be remotely satisfying? Definitely not.

That there are so many people talking about who they want in a Booster Gold movie certainly suggests that there's great interest. And I think it'd be great for even more people to discover the Greatest Hero They've Never Heard Of. But I just don't get a lot of entertainment value from random speculation about who or what we might be getting, especially when I'm so uncertain about what I might want.

So if you're wondering why I don't comment more on each latest Casting Rumor Of The Day, that's why.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: chris pratt james gunn movies

Three things today:

Thing 1: Although I don't normally watch movie trailers — they lie! — I made an exception for the upcoming Blue Beetle, which for legal reasons isn't titled Blue Spider-Man. I was thinking to myself, "This isn't for me," when the trailer gave me this:

The Bug! That is definitely for me. I still doubt we'll be seeing Booster Gold onscreen in that movie, but the trailer now makes me think we'll definitely be some Booster Gold Easter Eggs. We'll find out more in August.

Thing 2: This is only tangentially related to Booster Gold, but Mark Russell, writer of Booster Gold / The Flintstones Special team-up, has launched a Kickstarter to sell his own book of cartoons, Bunkbed Mishaps. One of the reward tiers includes a signed copy of The Flintstones: The Deluxe Edition collection with reprints the aforementioned team-up.

Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of all of Russell's writing (everything from God Is Disappointed in You to My Bad), so of course I'll be buying Bunkbed Mishaps. If you're interested in learning more about his latest project (or getting your hands on a signed Booster Gold comic), you'll find info at Kickstarter.com.

Thing 3: While we're on the subject of things I will be buying on Kickstarter, I might as well go ahead and throw my public support behind Karl Kesel's latest Impossible Jones comic book. Maybe you know Kesel as the creator of the Connor Kent incarnation of Superboy, but Booster boosters should always remember that he inked the fantastic story "When Titans Date" in Justice League Quarterly #10 (where Booster Gold and his fellow leaguers spy on Ted Kord's dinner date).

In addition to being a lot of fun to read, Kesel's Impossible Jones character raises similar ethical questions about what it means to steal your way to being a "hero" as a certain Michael "Booster" Carter. You can read more about her latest adventure, Impossible Jones and American A.N.G.E.L., on Kickstarter.com.

Okay, that's enough shilling for today. You may now resume your regularly scheduled ad-free Internet browsing.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: blue beetle bug karl kesel kickstarter.com mark russell movies

My mailbox is full with "news" sites reporting that in an exclusive interview with CBR.com, Chris Pratt has broken his silence on whether or not he'll play Booster Gold!

"As far as DC characters pan, I don't know. I will let the fans tell me what they would want me to do. I don't have anything official to announce. I haven't spoken to James Gunn in any capacity to where he's offered me anything like that."

So there you have it. If you want Chris Pratt to play Booster Gold, tell him. If you don't, tell him. Apparently, he's listening.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: chris pratt crb.com james gunn movies television