Summary
While the DCU’sBlue Beetleis starring in their own animated show in the near future, the star behind the role is still super open to new opportunities, even if it means playing for both teams in the comic book movie adaptation wars.
TheMarvel Cinematic Universehas been the more dominant of the two comic book film adaptation franchises, outpacing the now-defunct DCEU at every turn despite the latter having arguably better characters and stories to draw from across the board. While the entire industry has seen a bit of a downturn as of late, the MCU is still pressing on with new projects with a focus on introducing interesting new headliners for another go at the Avengers. As such, it wasn’t too surprising to fans thatMarvel Studios was developing aNovaseries withMoon Knight’s writer attachedafter the Nova Corps was introduced in the Guardians of the Galaxy film series.
While there’s little enough information on the project to go on, fan speculation has been going just as hard as ever, and one surprising name that’s been floated for the lead role in the show is Xolo Maridueña, rising star, and the DCEU’s Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle. If he did get the nod, Maridueña would join a pretty short list ofactors who’ve been in both the Marvel And DC cinematic universesalongside greats like Andy Serkis and Tom Hardy. In a clip from a recent interview posted to social media byThat Hashtag Show on X, Maridueña weighed in on potentially taking on the role of Nova in the MCU when asked. “I mean that would be cool too! Whatever I mean like, look, yeah, that’d be great. S***, I’m ready for whatever work is coming my way bruh. I’ll hit up some pushups, whoever wants me to do some pushups I’m ready for you bro,” Maridueña said.
Maridueña’s answer is humorous, but also makes a fairly good point about taking on two prominent roles at the same time if he can get them. Better yet, the two roles might not be so far apart in practice when the characters are really studied. Both characters are young members of an intergalactic collection of warriors that strive to prove themselves and fight to protect the Earth.Marvel’sNovaseries will draw inspiration from two major science fiction franchises, and that could give it a unique feel within the MCU, which has gone into space a hundred times with all the sci-fi credentials of an office sitcom. While more closely analogous to aGreen Lanternstory, this sort of direction wouldn’t be out of place in aBlue Beetleproject, meaning that both characters could have even more in common, depending on how the stories are told. Maridueña could bring the same bright spark he brought to the dying and doomed flame of the DCEU to the MCU in the same way he’s set to do for James Gunn’s new DCU.
In the end, the Nova series is likely still a ways off from actually selecting a lead, and even further away from coming to Disney+.Maridueña recently gave word on the DCU AnimatedBlue Beetleshow release plan, so fans can look forward to getting more time with that character while Marvel Studios goes through the motions of selecting the cast for theNovaseries. If Maridueña really makes the leap to the MCU and joins the exclusive club of stars for both franchises, then fans can enjoy seeing him across both franchises playing characters with a lot of potential and pretty good chances of being major players.
