Written by Kyle Ricketts
Awesome news for Bat family fans! Dick Grayson, the first Robin turned own superhero, seems to be getting his own standalone movie!
For those who don’t know Dick Grayson, he first appeared in Detective Comics in 1940 after his parents, who were part of an acrobatic act called ‘The Flying Graysons’, were murdered in order to extort the circus owner by a mob boss of the name Tony Zucco. After the murder of his parents, he was adopted by Bruce Wayne and trained vigorously alongside the dark knight.
It wasn’t until 1984 that we saw Dick hang up his cape as Robin and instead put on the hero boots to step out and call himself Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick would patrol Gotham’s neighbouring city, Bludhaven. He still occasionally helped Batman patrol Gotham (Under the Red Hood), but he has also been known to patrol New York and Chicago. However, his partnerships with Bats always reminded him of why he left in the first place.
Dick Grayson is considered by many to be the first son of Batman, even though in later comics (also spoilers here, just in case you didn’t know), we find out that Bruce has a biological son.
Director Chris McKay (The Lego Batman movie) has been tasked with leading this film and took to Twitter not long ago with this exciting piece of information:
Hi! Some early VDay news: Nightwing script expected very soon. Working on rip-o-matic to show studio. This is going to be a LONG process. So don’t expect casting news any time soon. We are taking our time. Expect big things from DC, Geoff Johns and WB team! Exciting year ahead!!
— Chris McKay (@buddboetticher) February 9, 2018
Based on this tweet, it seems as though we are close to actually seeing Nightwing take flight and leave Batman’s shadow on the big screen! Like it says in the tweet, Chris McKay expects this to be a long process and not to expect any casting news soon. However this hasn’t stopped fans from throwing out all kinds of theories pieced together from cryptic pictures from Instagram and Twitter such as these:
Source: @thebenbatfleck
Fans have also gone a step further and showed who they would love to play Dick Grayson. Some names that have been thrown around are Zac Efron (Bad Neighbors), Colton Haynes (Arrow), Aaron Taylor Johnson (Avengers: Age of Ultron), and Darce Montgomery (Stranger Things). Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing Jared Padalecki of the Supernatural fame play Dick!
If YOU were to cast NIGHTWING, what is the most important quality you would you look for in actor:
— Chris McKay (@buddboetticher) February 9, 2018
This could be huge for the former circus performer as the only time we’ve seen Dick Grayson in a live-action setting has been in the 1960’s television series Batman played by Burt Ward and more recently the 1995 Tim Burton Batman movie Batman Forever, and the 1997 movie Batman and Robin, played by Chris O’Donnell.
So far there has not been a live action Nightwing incarnation of Dick Grayson, unless you count voice acting in the animated movies, Batman: Bad Blood and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.
With a Nightwing movie in the works, one can hope that we may be able to see more of the extended Batman family, like Batgirl, Red Hood, or Red Robin!
Tye Sheridan