The Big Picture
- Blue Beetle, the new DC film, has a fun and energetic vibe, with George Lopez providing a standout comedic performance as Rudy.
- Director Ángel Manuel Soto allowed the cast to film improvised scenes, and Lopez delivered a seven-minute improv rant that brought some hilarious moments.
- While not all of Lopez’s improvised dialogue made it into the final cut, Soto found at least three parts too good to leave out.
Blue Beetle, the latest film from DC, moves at a brisk pace at just over two hours, and part of the reason for that is the fun and energetic aura around the film, with comedian George Lopez being a key figure in the overall enjoyment factor of the film. Outside of Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon — playing Victoria Kord, the film’s nemesis — Lopez is the most established name in the film by far, and his role as Rudy is a standout performance, with the character’s constant screaming and over-the-top mannerisms a particular highlight.
An acclaimed and shrewd comedian, particularly on the issues of Mexican American culture, Lopez was perfectly placed to serve as the fun uncle of the Reyes clan, even if he threatened to derail the film’s tight running time. Speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub at our IMAX screening, director Ángel Manuel Soto revealed that he would allow the cast the chance to film improvised scenes once they had shot the scripted scenes, and to find out if they could fit any of it into the finished movie. Lopez took the ball and ran—for seven full minutes.
“It was fun because we developed this thing where we shoot the script, and then we have one fancy, we call it the fancy one,” Manuel Soto said. “It’s where everybody can do whatever they want; they can have fun, they can joke, and whatnot. That’s where George Lopez thrives. So that rant…We only had one line in the script, and we just had the camera there, and he gave like a seven-minute improv rant of all the different things that Kord is doing to the community.”
George Lopez Is an Improv King
Soto laughed as he explained that so much of the rant could never possibly be shown, but that the entire rant was played for a test audience just to see what stuck and what didn’t, and he found at least three parts of the improvised dialogue that Lopez had brought which were just too good to leave out.
“It went crazy – like stuff that couldn’t be there, but it was fun. On the first friends and family screening, when the movie was like two hours and 40 minutes long, we played the whole thing just to hear the ones that people are laughing and connecting with. So, we left three in it.”
You can catch Lopez’s appearance in Blue Beetle in theaters now, and while you’re here, check out our full interview with the film’s director Ángel Manuel Soto down below.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
