As popular as Batman is, Nightwing, the alter ego of the first Robin all grown up, has a substantial following of his own. Getting out from under his mentor’s shadow, Dick Grayson puts on a bat-mask and a leotard and beats up crooks with sticks under a different name. Also, per comics tradition, he usually moves to a new city after breaking up with his girlfriend every couple of years. And now Chris McKay, coming off The LEGO Batman Movie, gets to bring that to film!
McKay is negotiating taking over the Nightwing movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter, working from a screenplay by The Accountant‘s Bill Dubuque. Considering McKay’s Robot Chicken past and the exceptionally dry humor of The Accountant, it’s safe to assume that this will preserve Nightwing’s wisecracks and free-spirited attitude, a big selling point for Dick Grayson in the comics.
Which leaves us with two questions. The first is when they might be releasing this movie, since not even The Batman has a hard release date yet and DC keeps firing up more movies to throw on the pile. The second is where this fits in with the universe they’re building. As you might remember, a Robin suit turned up in Batman V Superman, scrawled with Joker graffiti, and in the comics, it’s Jason Todd who dies. Unless they’re getting really weird, they’re probably sticking with that timeline, so the question now becomes, where the heck has Dick been all this time