Before ‘Titans’ arrived on the DC Universe streaming service, it was in development for a couple of years at TNT. Changes were made, as the original pitch included Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. But it doesn’t sound as though she will surface on ‘Titans’, even though the series has already been picked up for a second season. It seems that Warner Brothers and DC might be back to divvying up their characters between television and film, and in this case, it looks like the film division has dibs on Batgirl.
Producer Akiva Goldsman participated in a roundtable discussion at New York Comic Con, where he revealed:
“It has moved around a little bit based on its home. There was some Batgirl in it for a long time, there was a lot of Barbara Gordon in it up through the TNT iteration.”
When asked if she might appear in the ‘Titans’ second season, Goldsman replied, “I don’t think so, not for a lack of hunger.”
That suggests that the creators of ‘Titans’ would be interested in using Batgirl, but with a ‘Batgirl’ film actively in the works, it looks as though she’s hands-off for the TV division. This also seems to debunk the recent rumor that DC Universe had plans for a ‘Batgirl’ series that they hoped to deliver in 2020.
Goldsman further elaborated:
“There was a moment in the ongoing transformation of the DC cinematic universe that features was getting to say, ‘Well, we’re going to do a thing and then if it works, great, and if not maybe you can do a thing.’ And Geoff [Johns] grabbed Robin and held him – holding onto Dick Grayson for a TV show was not exactly their favorite idea, but that was really Geoff just protecting it. So we actually, if you think about it [we have] like a startling number of characters, with one noticeable absence in Cyborg, a startling number of characters who in other contexts might have been spun off, so we’re guarding them preciously. We have a few more, but there’s some we ain’t going to get.”
Fans of both the TV shows and movies may recall that at different times, ‘Arrow’ was told they could no longer use the Suicide Squad and Deathstroke, which resulted in the show basically killing off those versions.
Things seemed to relax, however, when The Flash was starring in his own show on The CW, played by Grant Gustin. But feeling that they needed a Flash in the movies, WB went ahead and introduced a movie version, Ezra Miller. Things seemed to have relaxed even further when, after Henry Cavill had appeared in multiple films, The CW was able to introduce their own version of Superman, portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin.
But maybe things have reverted back to the way it was before, with certain characters only appearing in one medium. Goldsman states that Geoff Johns latched onto Dick Grayson for a TV series, which the film division wasn’t thrilled about. Until recently, a ‘Nightwing’ movie, to be directed by Chris McKay, was in the works, but it now seems to have been put on the back burner. Is ‘Titans’ the reason why?
Goldsman also mentions that Cyborg is noticeably absent from ‘Titans’ and that is most likely due to the fact that Ray Fisher‘s version was appearing in the movies. But now that ‘Justice League’ has flopped severely diminishing any further Cyborg movie plans, the character has suddenly become available to the TV side, with Joivan Wade set to portray him on the ‘Titans’ spin-off ‘Doom Patrol’.
That’s just reading between the lines of Goldsman’s statements. There could be other factors at play, as well. Some have suggested Batgirl isn’t available to use on ‘Titans’ simply because she’s too high-profile and that where ever WB/DC decides to use her, she will be the headliner. (That may also explain why she isn’t in ‘Birds of Prey’.)
With DC Universe just rolling out, and the DC film universe in a state of mild stasis, the future is pretty wide open. We’ll just have to wait and see how things unfold on both sides.
‘Titans’ premiers on DC Universe this Friday, October 12.
Source: Screen Rant
