Holy bad idea Batman!
Robin the Boy Wonder is one of the most well known characters in the DC Comics stable. As Batman’s sidekick, the character has been at the forefront of comic book history for the past 70 years.
Now it would appear that that the character is going to get his own television show titled The Graysons, which has been seen as a possible replacement for Smallville on the CW network.
According to Variety:
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“The Graysons will follow the world of Dick ‘DJ’ Grayson before he takes on the iconic Robin identity and aligns himself with Batman. In the one-hour ‘Graysons,’ which will be set in modern times, young DJ will face challenges involving first loves, young rivals and his family as he grows up.”
Oh, and the show will be produced by McG. Yes, you did read that right.
Warner Bros. TV hopes that if Smallville does indeed end this year then The Graysons will be a solid replacement (as it’s aimed squarely at the same demographic) - but if Smallville continues, then the hope is that it will make a solid companion piece.
Would the circus visit Smallville? Everyone else has!
I’m a lifelong Batman fan, but I honestly feel that this project is wholly unnecessary. Much like Birds of Prey and the ill-fated Catwoman feature, any Batman-related spin-off lacks one key factor: Batman. The fact that they’re calling Dick Grayson “DJ” should set alarm bells ringing, but I guess there just aren’t enough Dicks on television anymore.
A Robin spin-off where the character is at College and away from Batman, a Nightwing solo show (Nightwing is who Robin became after leaving Batman) might be worthwhile, but a show about a family of acrobats just doesn’t sound that exciting. I can imagine it now, Dick… sorry… DJ solving crimes and wooing girls while saying (or whining) that he feels that he is destined for something greater.
Of course this begs the question: Just how young will they make the character? Certainly not 8-10 years old as he’s been in the comics. Just what audience will they try to capture? Tweens? Likely they’ll make him at least 13 or so in order that they can put him in situations with “first loves” and not have him so young it would creep viewers out.
Considering how CW has played fast and loose with Superman mythology, I can see this deviating quite a bit from what we would expect from the comic book version of the character. No doubt in the series he won’t become Robin until he’s 17 or so.
It would appear that Warner Bros. is now of the opinion that anything Batman related is “money” after the huge success of The Dark Knight.
If this isn’t canceled after a few episodes (or a season at the most) expect Burt Ward and Chris O’Donnell to guest star!
The show should air sometime next year.
As an added bonus, you probably don’t know that there’s actually already been a fan film created called Grayson and it’s pretty darned cool. Check it out:
To learn more about that short film check out our post Grayson Fan Film = Cool
Source: Variety
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39 Comments
Who thinks this crap up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Niall
YOur right! That GREYSON film on Youtube is pretty good! Well worth seeing!
Niall,I’m not referring to your reporting but to those who come up with really crappy idea’s in Hollywood.
Can I have some of what the WB execs have been drinking? That’s a pretty good drug trip their on.
This is really sad. Honestly is there anyone out there who would actually want to watch this? I like the Nightwing idea, but what is interesting about Dick Greyson before he becomes Robin? Nothing.
THat fan film preview is very good. I’d see it.
I really don’t get this one. I mean he has no powers, and no training or gadgets like he will have when he becomes Robin.
So basically he will fight badguys with, what, his trapeze act?
the name is what gets me. “The Graysons”
sounds like a sitcom. steven the git is absolutely right, what has Dick got going for him before he meets up with Bruce?
For me they should do a continuing of Green Arow from Smallville.
At this point he’s just a young kid in a Circus. He has no real Rogue Gallery and sorry to say, but who in their right mind wants to watch a show about a 13 year old or anyone younger than that. To really create interest he’s gonna have to be at least 16 to get any audience at all and if they do that they screw the entire story. No one is gonna buy a 20 year old getting adopted and being coming a sidkick in that outfit. There is nothing about this show that will interest people it has nothing going for it.
Hey Clean Talking Chimp,,, this idea came out of the Manatee tank they’ve got over at WB Studios.
The tank has recently been upgraded with about 26 new Batman idea balls,and 69 new teen angst idea balls.
When I first heard the news, I didn’t read to deeply and assumed it was an animated cartoon and figured it would work as such (and would be geared at the kiddies).
However, a live action geared for the smallville crowd based on Robin before meeting Bats? uhh. so we get to watch a kid in tights do circus tricks for an hour every week. /snore
Damn you, Manatees!!!!
Great point. The Graysons is just an awful title. It gives no appeal or idea of the show to those unaware.
You can tell how bad this whole idea is by the fact no one is complaining about McG.
Now, a show such as smallville based on Bats himself in his young days before donning the suit traveling the world and learning his batty ways. That I would watch.
“learning his batty ways.” Lol,!
Alfred, please throw that Batman canon out of the cave!!!!
Yes Master Bruce…
All of that was pretty well covered in Begins. While I would watch the show because I am a big Bat fan I probably wouldn’t enjoy it all that much. It dosn’t sound all that interesting and I would hate to see them do to Batman what they did to Superman in Smallvill.
I’d see it if it was well written, and maybe have Tony Zuko as the big bad crime boss that he goes against, hiring not as note worthy villans for his jobs:Deadshot, Clock King, Firefly. With him sometimes meeting batman as a cameo.
Ahh you’d watch it if they did with it what ruined Smallvill for me. Make it as anti cannon as they possibly can.
I hope Smallville gets a 9th season and the Graysons would be a companion follow-up. It’d turn Thursday nights into DC superhero nights.
lol. I just watched that Grayson fan movie. That was amusing. Out of all of it, I liked the Superman there the best. THAT’S the age and feel he should have been in Returns.
The fan film is great. They’ve covered a lot of bases and looks like they did it well. Too bad.
Frankly, when I first saw the title of this article, I thought “oh, c’mon, why don’t we give this one a chance first before we write it off.” But after reading about what CW intends to do with the story…I thought “Holy @#*%! What the heck were they thinking?”
Oh well, maybe I’ll give this one a shot first before I say anything more. But I have to agree that a “Nightwing” series would be more interesting.
Sometimes you can see the suckage coming down Broadway…
That’s just how it is.
They should just move the pilot right along, tap into the ratings game and “reimagine it” into “Robin - 90201; The After Years!”
Niall!! That’s totally exactly my idea! If they did anything with Robin worthwhile, it would be a Nightwing TV series with flashbacks of him when he was Robin and occasioanl appearances of Batman. But doing a TV show about Dick Grayson before he was Robin (who, as mentioned, is, acoording to comics canon, a KID at this point in his life), is a SUCKY idea! What’s an even WORSE idea is making him in his late teens and still pre-Robin! WTF?
790, I got the South Park reference lol.
But scratch all that. A World’s Finest series with Superman and Batman teaiming up weekly is what I wanna see. It could be seperate from the movies, and since there’s no Superman/Batman teamup film planned for right now, a tv series would be a geat idea! They could even get Michael Green who writes the current comic of the same name to do the show (he also writes heroes and the GL film).
Why is WB so determined to do TV series set in Batmans world that dont have Batman in them?
Sorry guys I dug it. Would really like to see DG grow up, (the actor in this was a good fit), become Nightwing quickly and move on. BTW, ‘Birds of Prey’ wasn’t that bad! I might even like a team-up on that one! Gotta go buff the armor… -Stark
You know, on second thougt… maybe it IS time to have a ‘Smallville’ replacement. Batgirl? Young, built, Megan Fox… huh? Oh. Jarvis says my BP is up. (That ain’t the only thing!) Now I’m stuck on the image of Megan in the Batgirl getup… Oil Can!!! -Stark
Here’s a concept for the CW network…
“The Justice Teens”. Let’s just throw um all in together, and give them a Gossip Girl twist.
The show could introduce a new hero that uses the awesome power of teen angst to defeat crime, and heal like Wolverine.
To compete with Wolverine (Marvel), they might consider creating a new character called “Teen Wolf”, and then get sued by whatever Studio owns that character… Sure its short term gain,,, long term pain, but who cares, they just write that off anyway or get a bailout. 8-/
Maybe CW somehow owns Teen Wolf anyway by now ?
^
Brett Ratner interested says it all,,, oh I mean MCG,,,
No doubt once this one takes off they’ll announce a companion series for the kiddies: Bruce. Watch a young Bruce Wayne and his best friend, a dog named Alfred, learn important lessons about life, morality, and forming a personal relationship with Jesus*. Until the final season, where on a very special episode he watches his parents shot to death in an alley, goes more than a little insane, and becames a caped vigillante/dark avatar of vengeance.
I mean, come on. The whole point of Batman is that it’s a universe filled with otherwise normal people who were driven to insanity by life in Gotham. The only way they can make the show interesting is by making Robin an unusual character (more so than the normal circus-performing kid anyway), which only serves to make Robin a far less interesting character overall. The death of his parents, the defining incident in his life, is the one thing that makes Dick Grayson a character worth paying attention to, and knowing the producers probably the one thing that we’ll never see on screen.
(*I don’t know why, but that just makes it sound so much funnier in my head.)
Loved the idea of solving crimes with his trapeze…imagine him setting female hearts aflutter with his prepubescently-pansexual moves on the monkeybars at the park playground, setting the stage for his rumored “closerthanthis” future relationship with a vengeance-minded millionaire playboy who is rumored to already have a little (4-letter-diminutive-form-of-the-name-”Richard”).
And I’ll bet you thought I didn’t see that no-profanity rule, huh?
Pssst!!! They just couldn’t resist milking more money off their characters, couldn’t they?
LOL @ 790!
They should really just do a “Teen Titans” show in all honesty, IMO. With Robin (Dick Grayson, NOT “DJ”, WTF?), Wonder Girl, Kid Flash (Wally West), Speedy, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire, Aqualad, and Raven.
Smallville is a awesome show, now they want to take it out and put this in? What are the people at the cw smoking
Looks like “The Greyson’s” have been scrapped, if comicbookmovie.com is right.
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