Inka Magnaye voices ‘Blue Beetle’s’ Scarab

Warner Bros. Philippines announced at the beginning of August that Filipina voice talent and content creator Inka Magnaye will voice the Scarab — an ancient alien relic pivotal to the titular DC Super Hero's story — for the Philippine release of Warner Bros. Pictures' upcoming action-adventure “Blue Beetle.”

In the film, the Scarab, called Khaji-Da, guides Jaime Reyes (played by “Cobra Kai” breakout star Xolo Maridueña) and helps him discover — and learn to control — his seemingly limitless new powers on his journey to becoming the Super Hero Blue Beetle. In the original version, the Scarab is voiced by singer/actress Becky G.

Filipina voice talent and content creator Inka Magnaye

Filipino talent Magnaye — considered royalty in the country's niche voicework industry — brings her distinct charm to the voice of the Scarab. Some of the character's lines are even in Filipino, which is definitely something to excite Filipino viewers.

Magnaye is the first Philippine-based Filipino talent to do voice-over work in a DC film. She will be properly credited, too, so watch for Magnaye's name in the credits.

Besides Magnaye's voice, there are many other things to look forward to in this all-new superhero movie.

Focus on family. Says director Ángel Manuel Soto of the close-knit Mexican-American Reyes family at the center of the film, “In this origin story, the family —contrary to other superhero movies where the hero keeps the secret from everybody around him — the secret really happens in front of the family. So, Gareth [Dunnet-Alcocer, screenwriter] always said, 'Good luck trying to hide a secret from your mom in a Latino household; they always know!' And we kind of like embraced that, so this made for a very unique journey where the family is part of the adventure, not a group of people or an object of rescue, but on the contrary, an integral part of the construct of this superhero.”

The humor. “Its tone is… it has to be funny,” says Dunnet-Alcocer. “I've never met a Mexican person that wasn't funny, so there's no way the movie wouldn't be funny. But what kind of funny it is, is wonderful, and I think it's really inspired by the tone of the early Blue Beetle comics, where you have a fallible hero.”

Fun with superpowers. Jaime's experience as a new hero in a brand-new suit is unique. “Can he fly? Yes. Is he strong? For sure. Are there big action sequences? Absolutely,” says producer John Rickard. “But it's the special abilities of the suit, which are unlike anything else in the DCU, that make it so ridiculously cool because it allows Blue Beetle endless superpowers. He's literally a 20-something who has a suit that can create anything he can imagine.”

An all-original city for a new superhero. In the comics, Jaime and his family live in El Paso, Texas, but the studio thought it would be a better idea to create an entirely new setting – a new place unique to the world of Blue Beetle called Palmera City.

“They thought it might make sense to give Jaime and Blue Beetle their unique city, much like Superman has Metropolis, The Flash has Central City. We loved this idea,” says producer Zev Foreman. “It suddenly got brighter; it suddenly got more colorful. It suddenly got the idea of water and how it combines with this place. It provided so many awesome opportunities to create a really unique environment in a superhero genre. And, again, it starts to inform the sounds, the music, the feeling, the lighting, all of these things, and I think it was an amazing choice.”

“Blue Beetle” opens in cinemas on August 16.