Brenton Thwaites, who stars as Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Nightwing, on Titans, reveals that he was offered to cameo in Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths but passed on it. Since 2012, executive producer Greg Berlanti has become one of Warner Bros.'s most prominent creators, starting with Arrow, which launched an entire universe of DC TV shows. The Arrowverse mastermind has become one of the busiest producers in Hollywood, with over a dozen shows on various networks and streaming services. While Berlanti has been integral to getting The CW lots of DC TV content, he's also brought original programming to HBO Max, including Titans.
Despite starting as a DC Universe original, Titans moved over to HBO Max for season 3 along with Doom Patrol, another one of Berlanti's productions. The gritty take on the Teen Titans characters follows Dick Grayson's life after being Robin as he becomes Nightwing, the leader of a band of young heroes. Titans is shooting season 4, reportedly eying a fall release date. While Titans were never launched as an Arrowverse spinoff, the HBO Max drama is loosely tied to the franchise via the Multiverse, as established to exist on Earth-9 in Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, the tie-in may have had a more significant role than what was shown on-screen.
Thwaites was at Motor City Comic Con, where he revealed he was asked to appear in The CW's crossover event Crisis On Infinite Earths. During a panel, as well as an interview with Cosmic Circus, the Australian actor explained that despite the offer to appear in the Arrowverse 5-part event, he declined to appear, feeling that the tone of Titans and The CW properties are so vastly different, it would perhaps not been a fit, stating the following:
"FROM PANEL: I actually decided not to do that. I mean I know that my image is in it. But I… I declined because of the reason I said before, we’re creatively a different show, and I’m very proud of Titans. You know, all of the people involved, the camera crew, the writers, the producers; And to just bring in another show and crossover and say, let our characters we’ve developed and we’ve brought to the screen – you know, the costumes we’ve designed, the relationships that we’ve developed, the emotional arcs and journeys that we’ve gone on…
It’s not better or worse, it’s just different, unique. And I find it’s creatively a little bit of a… attention grab, I think, to crossover if it doesn’t really support both storylines. If it does, great. If the stories are really enriched and kind of drawn out and follows this wonderful arc that interweaves with the other then fantastic. But if it’s really just for a cross-promotional thing then it feels funny to be a part of it."
FROM INTERVIEW: It’s a different deal thing, right? If you crossover to a different show, they treat it like a different job, and you know you gotta fly to that place, although the studio and whoever’s in charge will make it work, I feel like… you know, you get a choice, right? You get a choice to read the script, to study the project and, you know, to be a part of what you want to be a part of; and uh… it was just not something that I wanted to do at the time.I mean, whether I believed that it should cross over or not, it’s not really beside the point, I just think that… you know, Titans is such a unique show, the way it looks, the way it feels, the characters, and I kind of… I don’t know, I selfishly want to preserve, you know, the uniqueness of that."
While Thwaites never specified what Nightwing's appearance would have looked like, Titans still had a presence during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Before and after the new Multiverse was created by Oliver Queen as the Spectre, Titans were briefly shown through archived footage from the earlier seasons. Even though Dick doesn't appear during Titans' brief Crisis on Infinite Earths cameos, Hawk, Dove, Robin (Jason Todd,) Starfire, and Raven were featured to help establish the connectivity through the Arrowverse Multiverse. That is why Titans is considered Arrowverse-adjacent due to the brief cameos.
Thwaites isn't necessarily wrong that Titans and the Arrowverse shows are significantly different from one another. A show on a streaming platform versus a broadcast network is by default going to be made differently. However, there is no reason why Nightwing couldn't have, similar to the other characters, appeared in archived footage or shot a scene as they witnessed the Anti-Monitor destroy Earth-9. Thwaites' Nightwing wasn't the only big DC TV cameo that was scrapped, as Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum was also approached to return as Lex Luthor. Until the Titans creative team or anyone involved with Crisis on Infinite Earths reveals what Nightwing's cameo would have been like, it'll remain a mystery what was actually pitched to Thwaites.
Source: Cosmic Circus