Titans fans got a nice shock recently when it was announced that Bruce Wayne was coming to the show in season 2. Batman, both in and out of the costume, did appear on the DC Universe series’ first run, but only in obscured shots. When it returns, however, there will be no such restrictions, as Game of Thrones star Iain Glen will be portraying the Dark Knight in the flesh.
Glen certainly has cult credibility thanks to his role as Jorah Mormont on GOT for the past eight years, but he’s still a left-field choice to play Batman due to his age – at the time of casting, he’s 57. Presumably, the idea of finding an older Bats is to reflect that his heydays of saving Gotham with Dick Grayson’s Robin (Brenton Thwaites) by his side are over. But could it also be a subtle way of setting up a spinoff series down the line?
What if Titans is laying the groundwork for a live-action Batman Beyond show? The fan favorite early 2000s animated series saw an elderly Bruce forced to retire from being a superhero, instead training up his successor Terry McGinnis as the next Batman. Bat-lovers have been dying to see the cartoon adapted in some other medium since then, and ScreenRant has now speculated that perhaps this is exactly what DC Universe has got planned.
After all the talk of a BB movie over the years, we don’t want to get our hopes up, but this isn’t too outrageous an idea. Titans season 1 already had a backdoor pilot for one spinoff, Doom Patrol. Plus, several more original series are on the way, including Stargirl and Swamp Thing. True, the recent news that production on ST‘s first season has been shut down as WB rethinks the future of DC Universe doesn’t bode well, but we still wouldn’t be surprised if Titans is secretly paving the way for some sort of Batman Beyond spinoff down the road.
