The Nightwing film is heading toward production soon and director Chris McKay has many stories to choose from in adapting the character to the big screen, but ask current writer of the Nightwing comic, Tim Seeley, what story he would like to see adapted and he would choose the character’s recent arc where Dick Grayson is torn between his loyalty to Batman and his new mentor, Raptor. Tim says:
“I would do a very similar thing to what we did in the first six issues of Nightwing — the Raptor story. If the story is going to have to be about a guy who was trained by Batman going off to fight on his own, then having him fight a guy who wants to be his new mentor and changes, I think that’s the perfect story for it. I think the first act is, he’s dealing with a villain — it could be the Court of Owls or something but it could be anything else. The threat is a threat that affects Batman and the family, because you want to have some relationship with that, then he gets corrupted, and has to fight Raptor. I think that’s your three-act movie.”
In the comic, Dick Grayson goes undercover and infiltrates The Court of Owls in an effort to rescue Robin and is introduced to Raptor, an assassin who uses techniques that Batman never would. Nightwing finds himself in a moral tug of war with himself.
Not only is this fertile ground for real human drama and rich character development, but Raptor has a connection to Dick Grayson. He was a member of Haly’s Circus.
Regardless of what direction McKay goes in, Â he promises a deep dive into the lore of Robin/Nightwing with heavy reliance on practical action set pieces and a promise to win an Oscar for stuntwork (an Oscar first)
No release date has been set yet, but filming is supposed to start in 2018 and it sounds like the wait will be worth it!
