Another DC project lost in development Hell has been canceled. After years of not having a serious chance with all the crazy continuity of the DCEU, the live-action Nightwing movie that LEGO Batman director Chris McKay was dreaming of is no longer moving forward. In fact, it is declared dead by a writer with an inside track.
TheWrap film reporter and founder of the site Heroic Hollywood Umberto Gonzalez said “that project is dead” when the hope for McKay one day making it was brought up by a post on X. There was suspicion going on for a few years that this was the case, and Gonzalez appears to have put the final nail in the coffin.
RELATED: James Gunn Responds To ‘Doom Patrol’ And ‘Titans’ Ending After Four Seasons
This has to be unfortunate news for McKay who maintained optimism up to this year that his take on Nightwing could be realized. “Look, I am still hoping to do something with it,” he said to SFX Magazine recently (via Comicbook.com). “Now that James Gunn is involved… I haven’t had any conversations with him or anybody over there, but I love that character.”
He added, “I hope I can do something with him. That would be amazing.” While promoting Renfield, McKay expressed similar sentiments to Games Radar. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not lost yet…[Warner and DC] had other priorities, they’ve had other challenges. I think it opens the door for us to still be able to do a Nightwing movie.”
Apparently not at this juncture. Over the past half-decade, Zack Snyder had Dick Grayson killed off in his DCEU movies before he could be introduced, and Brenton Thwaites played a damaged Dick who, a separate interpretation, was the vanguard of four seasons of the Max Original series Titans. At times, this version was the nadir of DC television.
Specifics of what McKay’s Nightwing would’ve entailed are few, but in the past, the filmmaker talked up how “bad a–” and different from the LEGO DC movies it was going to be. “This movie will be different than LEGO Batman, different than any other Gotham-based film or TV show, and will be a wholly original look at Robin/Dick Grayson,” he said in 2017.
McKay added that same year his movie was “gonna be a f— bada– action movie with a lot of heart and emotion. It’s gonna be a crazy, fun ride” that will require actors to endure a boot camp level of training.
What do you make of this report that the Nightwing film has been killed?