Having explored the pre-Superman days of a young Clark Kent with Smallville, series exec producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson are joining filmmaker McG (Terminator: Salvation, We Are Marshall) in doing the same with Batman’s faithful sidekick. Daily Variety reports that the team is put together a pilot for The CW that revolves around Dick Grayson, who eventually helps the Dark Knight protect Gotham City as Robin the Boy Wonder. The Graysons is being produced by Warner Bros. TV.
The hour-long pilot episode will be set in modern times as young Dick ‘DJ’ Grayson manages his budding love life, meets the challenge of young rivals and copes with his family. The show will reportedly offer an original take on the DC Comics character created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and illustrator Jerry Robinson. Grayson first appeared as Robin in Detective Comics #38 in May of 1940. Part of a family circus act dubbed ‘The Flying Graysons,’ the acrobatic lad hooks up with Batman after his entire family is killed by a gangster. He later came into his own as caped crusader Nightwing. Actor Burt Ward played the Boy Wonder in the campy 1960s series, and Chris O’Donnell played him on the big screen in the 1995 hit Batman Forever.
McG, who exec produces The CW’s Supernatural, is overseeing development of The Graysons through his Wonderland Sound and Vision shingle, and will exec produce with Souders, Peterso, and Wonderland’s Peter Johnson. Should the project go to series, it may replace Smallville, which is likely to end its run with the completion of the current season, its eighth. The pilot order also indicates that Warner Bros. plans to hold onto its 50% stake in The CW, which recently got a ratings boost from the new teen dramas Gossip Girl and 90210.
