For weeks, Lewis Tan has been dropping clues that he’s on the verge of landing a major comic book role over at Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment. And it seems That Hashtag Show has nailed down exactly what that role may be – Nightwing.
The Chris McKay-directed spinoff has been casting the net in search of its title star, and while negotiations are ongoing, THS brings word today that Lewis Tan is officially circling the coveted role of Dick Grayson. Not only that, but he’s already met with DC Entertainment about the potential gig, as the Deadpool 2 actor revealed during the Saturn Awards this past weekend.
Still riding high from his performance as Shatterstar in the aforementioned sequel, not to mention those roles across Iron Fist and Into the Badlands, Lewis Tan is undoubtedly an actor on the rise, so if the stars were to align, this would be a major coup for Warner Bros.
Asked straight-up about his possible involvement in Nightwing, Tan told THS the following:
I know Chris McKay wants a martial artist, right, so that’s out there. He’s following me on Twitter, you know…there’s a lot of good juju vibes out there for that. Nothing that I can say that is confirmed. This is a project that he’s still developing and I sat down with DC, with some of the executives at DC, and they’re big fans, I’m a big fan, obviously. My father came to America, because of Batman (1989) and, you know, I definitely want to see that come full circle and give back. Im not trading in my Marvel roots, because they started me, but DC started my dad, so it would be nice to go over there and play around and find the right thing. So we’re looking for the right thing and there were a lot of different talks and Nightwing was one of those that were mentioned, so we’ll see.
This is a project that has been in development for quite some time, and Lewis Tan didn’t really give any clue about how the negotiations were progressing. The takeaway? Don’t be fooled into thinking that Tan is a shoo-in for Nightwing; this merely confirms that he’s one of many actors being considered for Chris McKay’s DC spinoff.
But, given the opportunity, Tan would wholly commit himself to the cause:
Yeah, I would put everything into it. I think that, when you’re a martial artist and you’re doing an action show, you can do so much more. You don’t have to cut around the actor, you don’t have to hide the actor and the performance alone is going to show so much more because it’s all you and you’re all there and you’re putting your blood, sweat and physicality into the role which is a big part of these type of films, you know, like Deadpool and Batman and Iron Fist, all those roles that I did, I can put so much more into it and I think it comes across, you know, and when fans see it they go, ‘Wow, that was incredible!’, even if it was short they go, ‘Wow, that was incredible!’ and I think it’s because of that effort you put into it.
Last we reported, Warner’s Nightwing movie was seemingly “years down the line,” as Paramount and Chris McKay are ready to roll the dice on a live-action Dungeons & Dragons movie. Perhaps the addition of Lewis Tan will lend the project some much-needed momentum, though? We’ll find out soon.
