Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and it was just announced that a live action Teen Titans series
is close to landing on TNT.
In the tradition of Arrow it would just be called Titans.
But it’s not being done by the same group of people that are doing Arrow and The Flash.
So this video will be a breakdown of what’s going on with the deal and which characters
they’ve confirmed for it.
It’s still a very preliminary thing.
If you are just finding me for the first time.
There are 4 new DC Comics tv shows coming in the next month.
Including Arrow, The Flash, Gotham and Constantine.
I’ll be doing weekly videos for all of them, so be sure to subscribe to get everything.
Some of you guys have been asking me Teen Titans questions on Twitter and Facebook.
The biggest being who’s on the team and will it connect with the other DC shows?
Right now they’ve only named 3 team members, Nightwing, Starfire and Raven.
In the same way that Arrow and The Flash have been casting superheroes using their real
names, the Teen Titans show lists Nightwing as Dick Grayson.
I know it sounds weird, but when they cast these types of shows.
They list Dick Grayson on the casting sheet, not Nightwing.
Right now there are no official plans to connect it to the DC TV Universe in the way Arrow,
The Flash, Constantine and Gotham will loosely be connected.
And to be honest, only Arrow and The Flash have confirmed they’re doing full blown
crossovers.
I’ll explain the shared TV Universe in a sec.
But the Teen Titans show would be a one hour drama just like the other shows.
Every live action DC Show right now is a one hour drama.
The current state of the production deal is still at the pilot stage.
Meaning, TNT is still waiting to approve the pilot for production.
If they say yes.
TNT would pay 4 or 5 Million dollars for Warner Brothers to produce a pilot episode.
Then TNT would either greenlight the series for 6 or so episodes.
And if those go well, they’d pick it up for a full season.
And each season thereafter they’d either pick it up and cancel.
That’s typically the way all tv shows work.
The only exception to that right now inside the DC Universe is Gotham.
Fox paid Warner Brothers a dump truck of money to produce the show themselves and greenlit
a full season 1 almost immediately.
Usually shows don’t get a full season order that fast unless they’re a guaranteed hit.
TNT doesn’t have FOX levels of money to throw around, but they do need a Superhero
Genre show.
So TNT really wants Teen Titans to work.
If you want to know what it might look like.
Think about the other shows TNT is running and how a new superhero drama might fit in
with those.
Right now they’ve got the new Sean Bean show Legends, Major Crimes, Murder In The
First, Perception, Cold Justice, and reruns of Supernatural, Smallville and some other
younger demographic shows.
Basically right now, TNT is like the Informative Murder Porn channel for those who saw that
episode of South Park.
If you didn’t you should watch it, it’s on Hulu.
So any Superhero show they’d want to do would combine some of the feel of their syndicated
shows so people like me would watch with the gritty hardcore aspects of Informative Murder
Porn.
So the older TNT audience, like people 25 to 54 years old.
Mostly skewing towards the older half of that range.
So imagine a bloodier more sexed up disturbing version of Arrow.
And that’s really what would probably sell at TNT.
They’re going to want a show that fits in with their other new shows.
So just remember that.
I think it’s an interesting twist.
TNT is a cable network, so it doesn’t have to worry as much about censorship issues as
say Gotham on FOX.
Gotham is supposed to be really dark and gritty, but it’s on a major network.
So it can only take that so far.
Cable shows have a lot more lattitude in what they can show.
And since this isn’t an animated show being marketed to children there’s also not those
concerns.
The other big question that I’ve seen a few of you ask is who is behind this, like
who’s the person writing all this stuff.
It’s Akiva Goldsman and Marc Haimes.
Most people will remember Goldsman as the person who wrote Batman Forever and Batman
and Robin, that is not a strike in his favor.
But he also wrote on Fringe for a long time.
Haimes isn’t really known for his writing.
He used to be an executive at Dreamworks, I don’t know that he still is.
Right now the story of that Pilot episode is essentially set.
TNT is just finalizing the deal.
So this is happening but it doesn’t guarantee it will make it to series.
If you remember, during the Smallville era, Warner Brothers tried to get a Blue Beetle
show off the ground.
They even shot a pilot episode, Geoff Johns brought footage to Comic Con.
But it never turned into a series.
So there have been big DC TV Shows that fizzled out in various stages of development.
In terms of what the story might be, based on them only announcing three members it’s
probably going to be an origin story with twenty something-aged characters.
So this won’t be like a high school version of Teen Titans, it won’t be Buffy.
Arrow took it’s time introducing other characters from the comics, The Flash is getting there
a lot faster, but since those are both CW shows and they share a lot of the same DNA,
I don’t expect TNT to just jump right in with every Teen Titan team member there’s
ever been.
In terms of big season 1 villains they might use, some of my top picks would be Trigon,
if they’re doing Raven, they can do Trigon.
HIVE, Vandal Savage, Cheshire, Calculator.
I don’t think Warner Brothers would let them use Deathstroke, since Arrow already
did the character.
Warner Brothers and DC have to approve when shows want to use characters for the first
time.
For example, during the Arrow Comic Con panel, Andrew Kreisberg said that initially when
they were planning season 3, they wanted to use Ted Kord as the Blue Beetle.
They’d already laid all these Kord Industries easter eggs everywhere, so it’s only natural
they’d bring him on.
But, Warner Brothers said “We have other plans for that character.”
- So naturally, they made Brandon Routh’s Character the Ray Palmer Atom.
Re-thinking Kriesberg’s comment about Blue Beetle makes me wonder if Ted Kord is in this
new Titan’s show.
It’s not confirmation or anything, but Warners did have other plans for a live action Ted
Kord.
And it’s probably not for Batman vs Superman.
Of course if everything works out I’d love to see Tim Drake, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Wondergirl
and maybe even Superboy.
I think the long shots are Superboy and Wondergirl, just because the Superman/Wonder Woman persona’s
have typically been film-only.
But it’s possible we could see a live action Conner Kent someday.
Probably not soon.
Because you’d have to explain superman in the new tv universe first, lex luthor again
and it just makes things so much more complicated.
I know you guys all say Smallville did it before, but think of the new DC TV Universe
as beginning with Arrow.
Arrow is the progenitor for all these new Modern Shows.
So everything has to be re-introduced just like in the comics after the new 52 universe.
Just pretend like Smallville isn’t canon with all these new stories.
Given that, let me know who you guys want to see be the villain of the Teen Titans show?
Remember, it can’t be someone that’s already been on another show in the last couple of
years.
TNT is a different network than CW and while all these different networks are doing shows.
Each network isn’t doing characters the other networks are doing.
Since we’re within 4 weeks of all these shows premiering, Next week I’m going to
start doing bonus videos for them, especially the new stuff like Gotham, Constantine and
The Flash.
I already do a lot of Arrow videos.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything.
And if there’s any video requests you guys want to make, just let me know in the comments.
Right now click here to learn all about the new Arrow Season 3 trailer and click here
to learn about some of the new Flash Villains coming in season 1.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High Fives!