It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about the upcoming Nightwing movie from LEGO Batman director Chris McKay. Yes, we got some Nightwing casting news recently, but that was for the Dick Grayson in the upcoming Titans television series, not the solo movie (hey, if there can be movie and TV versions of the Flash and Superman, Nightwing is fair game too).
But recently, while speaking with Collider, McKay shared some of his thoughts about bringing Dick Grayson to movie theater screens in the near future. He spoke of the fact that Dick Grayson is one of the most well known heroes in comics history, yet keeps getting brushed aside in live-action adaptations of Batman, first by Tim Burton, and later, Christopher Nolan. But McKay believes his time has come, saying “I’m a big fan of underdog stories, and he is one of the biggest underdog stories in comics. And he’s a character that I grew up with. I like the arc.”
One of the great appeals of Nightwing as a character is that he is one of the very few iconic superheroes who got to transition significantly in age. When he started out in 1940, he was a preteen, then he transitioned from “Robin the Boy Wonder” to “Robin the Teen Wonder,” before finally becoming an adult hero as Nightwing in the pages of Teen Titans. It was a roughly 45 year adolescence, but hey – Superman and Batman have been about 32 for nearly 80 years. It’s this character growth that appealed to McKay, who said “every other character lives in a rough version of the age that they’re in. Very few characters actually grow up in the comics and become something else, and go from being a boy to being an adult, and have their own life and become their own thing.”
So what can fans expect out of this big screen iteration of Richard Grayson? McKay doesn’t mince words, saying “whoever gets cast as Nightwing, and any of the other actors around, are gonna go through a fucking boot camp experience because it’s gonna be a lot. I’m not gonna do a lot of CG. It’s gonna be all real shit. It’s gonna be real stuntwork, and they’re gonna need to do all of the stuff on camera and do it credibly. Everything he does is gonna have to be real. His superpower is being really fucking good, as a human being, at fighting and gymnastics and shit like that, so you’re gonna see that on screen. It’s gonna be fun!”
Since the TV version of Nightwing is going to be focusing on his relationship to his teammates (something I imagine won’t be mentioned at all in the solo movie), here’s hoping that the movie version is a bit like a big screen version of the Netflix Daredevil series, at least in terms of action. Although hopefully Dick Grayson will have more humor than dour Matt Murdock, as his ability to retain his sense of humor and fun is a big part of what sets him apart from his mentor Batman. Here’s hoping that Warner Brothers fast tracks McKay’s Nightwing film before too long.
What do you want out of a live-action Nightwing movie? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: DC Comics / Warner Brothers
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