Nightwing

‘Into The Badlands’ star Lewis Tan posted an image on Twitter, following a meeting at DC Entertainment.  In his post, he wrote “Great meeting …My father started in this business with Tim Burtons #Batman, soon will be full circle.”  Tan’s father, Phillip, appeared as one of Jack Nicholson’s Joker’s goons in the first film.  In his photo, Tan is shown holding some reading material that was presumably given to him by DC for some reason and his reference to ‘Batman’ would seem to indicate he is lending his formidable martial arts skills to a project that is in some way connected to DC’s Dark Knight.

Check out the photo below:

There are a few possible explanations.  The least exciting is that Tan, a fomer Muy-Thai boxer, will somehow be involved with the technical side of things, either as a stunt performer or choreographer on an upcoming DC project.  With two ‘Joker’ movies in the works, Lewis Tan could be following very closely in his father’s footsteps and playing a henchman to either Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix‘s take on the villain.

But there are two potentially huge possibilities.  Tan could be going in front of the camera as a huge name, either Batman or Nightwing.  Most are speculating that Nightwing seems to be a more likely choice, but the latest buzz is that Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ movie will focus on a younger Caped Crusader, early in his career.  This would serve as an effective means of writing Ben Affleck out of the DC movies, as the actor has reportedly expressed a desire to leave that film universe after the poor reception his movies have received.  At 31, Tan is certainly younger than Affleck and could fill in that gap.  Obviously, there is the race issue– Tan is half Chinese.  Having a mixed race Batman wouldn’t be a terrible thing, but it may ruffle some traditionalists’ feathers.

But Nightwing isn’t as cemented in audiences’ minds as a white guy.  Some liberties could be taken with him.  ‘Nightwing’ director Chris McKay has stated that this film will be extremely physically demanding and wanted a lead that could potentially perform their own stunts and that those stunts would be intense.  Tan has worked as a stunt performer in movies such as ‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ and ‘Olympus Has Fallen’.  And his roles as Gaius Chau on ‘Into the Badlands’ and as Shatterstar in ‘Deadpool 2’ have also been quite physically intense.  In addition to ‘Deadpool 2’, Tan was up for the lead role on Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’, but that role went to Finn Jones.  Tan did appear in a smaller role of Zhou Cheng.

But there is nothing explicit in Tan post, beyond a hint that he is somehow going to be involved with some DC project in some capacity.

Check out this video of some of his athletic abilities:

 

What do you think?  What role in the DC Universe would you like to see Lewis Tan take on?