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When it comes to DC movies, presently all eyes are on The Batman, which after securing a director to replace Ben Affleck is finally back on track. Where the DCEU looks most exciting, however, is with another member of the Bat Family: Nightwing. That’s right – according to a recent report, the Blüdhaven-protecting, former-Robin dikk Grayson is coming to the DC Extended Universe. The Lego Batman Movie’s Chris McKay is in talks to direct, with The Accountant‘s Bill Dubuque working on the script.
Little info beyond the mere existence of the project is known (which may be because it was something only pitched recently by McKay), but it’s a very intriguing development. In fact, in the scope of the wider DC slate, Nightwing could be the movie that promises the best chance for the franchise to get out of its current slump.
The long-term state of the Extended Universe is – as it has been since Batman v Superman – unclear. What’s been released so far have been met with polarizing reactions and there’s serious trepidation about what’s to come, no doubt influenced by the onslaught of production issues that have met pretty much every project Warner Bros. float; out of the epic slate they announced in 2014 only one is on track (and that’s freaking Aquaman). There’s hope, but it’s hard to not feel like the series is in the middle of a quagmire.
With problems on a metahuman scale, how can a sidekick save the day? Let’s take a look.
Something Audiences Haven’t Seen Before
Nightwing Movie LEGO Batman Director How a Nightwing Movie Could Revive the DCEU
For someone so integral to Batman as a character (he was introduced April 1940, only a year after the Dark Knight made his debut), there’s been a real hesitation in putting Robin on the big screen. Burt Ward’s version was inseparable from Adam West, but it took three movies of the Burton-Schumacher series before Chris O’Donnell made his debut (and that’s hardly well remembered). The Dark Knight Trilogy avoided him completely save for paying lip service with John Blake’s birth name, and the most prominent he’s been in the DCEU is a Joker-graffitied costume, leaving The Lego Batman Movie as Robin’s sole 21st century appearance so far.
The problem at the heart of this is that when movie producers hear of Robin, they tend to think of the Golden Age Boy Wonder who makes endless puns, sleeps in a bed with Bruce Wayne and wears a very revealing costume. As most big screen versions of Batman lean into realism, it’s hard to make that work. But, as most people know, that’s not the whole story; while this kitschy characterization is definitely a key part of Robin’s past, there are decades of further development for dikk Grayson after he hangs up the costume and a slew of other Robins that come up in his wake that’re being ignored.
This is where the Nightwing movie comes in. By jumping past the perceived silly versions of Robin, it should give us dikk Grayson as a fully rounded, independent character tackling a new type of crime in a new city. It’s the realistic Robin that has been seen in some of the DC animated outings, but on the big screen has been roundly ignored. Contextually this will be massive; having Grayson move into his Nightwing persona is something most audiences won’t be even aware of, giving a genuinely new narrative direction for the character. Seeing Batman fight criminals? Been there. Superman saving Lois Lane? Done that. Robin taking on his own mantle and moving out of Batman’s shadow? Now that’s fresh.
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