By Travis Johnson
Star of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Brenton Thwaites has been cast in Titans, the latest live action TV project in the DC comics stable. Thwaites will play team leader and former Batman disciple Dick Grayoson, aka Robin, aka Nightwing, joining Teagan Croft as Raven and Anna Diop as Starfire.
For those not in the know, Titans is an adaptation of the long running Teen Titans franchise, which essentially put all the teen sidekick DC characters – Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, etc and so firth – on a team together. It first kicked off back in the middle ’60s, but really hit its stride in the ’80s, under writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez. That particular run also saw the debut of major DC villain Deathstroke, who has since been seen menacing Ollie Queen on Arrow and is set to be played (if the bloody movie ever comes out) by Joe Mangianello in Matt Reeves The Batman.
The TV incarnation comes us courtesy of veteran comics scribe Geoff Johns, DCTV mastermind Greg Berlanti, who also gave us the pretty great “Archie-meets-Twin-Peaks” Riverdale series, and Akiva Goldsman, last seen ruining The Dark Tower. Hopefully the latter, easily the worst writer ever to win an Oscar (seriously, it’s like Christy Brown getting a medal for tap dancing) has as little to do with the project as humanly possible. Let’s cross every digit.
Still, it’s good news for Thwaites, a charismatic performer who has been ill-served by his recent forays into blockbusterdom – before playing Will Turner Jr. in Pirates V he was the nominal lead in Alex Proyas’ enjoyably mad misfire, Gods of Egypt, and we all know how well that went.
Titans is due on DC’s proprietary digital service in 2018 – we’ll bring you news on Australian availability when we can.
