As Warner Bros. looks to expand the DCEU in the coming years, away from the expected, well-known character sequels like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Wonder Woman 3, the introduction of new characters like Blue Beetle is coming. While it was originally expected to be an HBO Max exclusive movie like Batgirl, Blue Beetle is now going to get the full cinematic treatment, and that means that the film is pulling out all the stops to get big names involved in the film, including Sharon Stone as the movie’s villain, Victoria Kord.

Variety reported that the Basic Instinct actress will join the DCEU in the movie that will see Xolo Mariduena taking on the title role as the first Latino character to have a lead in a superhero movie. While details of the film are thin on the ground right now, Stone’s character surname will be known to fans of the DC comics as it is the same as that of Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. However, it looks like the belief that two villains are better than one is clearly in the mind of the movie’s creators, as Raoul Max Trujillo has also been added to the film’s cast to play Carapax the Indestructible Man.

With the combination of Carapax and Victoria Kord, it would seem that the film could be building up to feature Ted Kord, but that could be something played on more in the sequels that director Angel Manuel Soto has already hinted at. Xoto Maridueña will be playing Jamie Reyes in the movie, a teenager who discovers an alien scarab that transforms him into the Blue Beetle, but it could well be possible that other Beetles could be featured in the story. With the movie set to shoot this year, it will not be too long before we see the cast is rounded out and some more information about the film's plot revealed.

Related: Blue Beetle Concept Art Reveals Jaime Reyes in HBO Max Movie

Blue Beetle is the Latest Movie in Warner Bros.’s Surge of New DCEU Content

DC Comic's Blue Beetle
DC Comics

Next year, Warner Bros. is looking to get the DCEU back on track after a few shaky years, and Blue Beetle will be one of the first movies to follow the current slate. The next movie released from the DCEU will be Black Adam in October this year, followed by Shazam! Fury of the Gods in December. Next year Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Flash will be released, and somewhere in between all of that, Batgirl will premiere on HBO Max.

After the continued controversy of the Justice League release in its various forms, Warner Bros. will be hoping to bring some kind of consistency back to the DCEU, and it has to be said that their upcoming movies do seem to be getting a lot of attention from fans even though the first of those doesn’t arrive for another six months. The real question is whether a lesser-known character like Blue Beetle can manage to pull in audiences to cinemas, and that is something that even the addition of a few big names cannot guarantee.