The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay has been attached to a Nightwing movie for several years now, but in the ever-shifting landscape of the DC universe, the project has found itself stuck in creative limbo.
Now, during an interview with The Bear Cave, McKay finally opened up about the project and gave some fascinating insight into what he was/is planning for Nightwing.
“It was going to be a character study about this guy who grew up with sort of a bad dad,” McKay says, referencing Dick Grayson’s upbringing under Batman. “How that made him as a young adult try to fight off and go as far away from that world as humanly possible and get dragged back into it. It becomes a revenge movie, and it’d be an introduction to Nightwing and the world of Blüdhaven. There was going to be a lot of villains.”
Fans had been wondering if this Nightwing movie would be linked to Ben Affleck’s take on Batman, but it seems like that wasn’t even certain to McKay, with the director adding:
“There was still some stuff that was needed to be determined of what that was going to look like. [It was] a Nightwing movie like you were picking up a Nightwing comic. You’re not guaranteed Batman was going to show up, but he could show up, and other people could show up, but again you’re dealing with Nightwing, and that’s what I like about it.”
As for whether there’s any hope of seeing McKay’s plans for Nightwing, the director went on to clarify that no one at Warner Bros. or DC Films “has told me we’re not making that movie. It’s just right now; they have other priorities.”