DC is expanding its superhero television lineup with Supergirl in October and Legends of Tomorrow sometime in 2016, but the fate of another one of their series still remains elusive. Last year, it was announced that a live-action Teen Titans TV show was in development at cable network TNT, and DC’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns said that the Titans pilot would be shot in 2015. However, the year more than half gone and fans have gone months without hearing news of its progress. Does this mean Titans is dead? Not necessarily.
When Titans was nowhere to be seen on TNT’s fall and winter schedule earlier this year, this led many fans to wonder if the series had been scrapped, but TV Line has learned that Titans is still in development. That said, there hasn’t been any movement on the casting/production front, so it’s still a mystery when things will start to pick up steam. If there’s no filming date set on the pilot yet, the soonest we could see Titans is probably Summer 2016, though a premiere in the fall/winter 2016/early 2017 seems more likely.
Details have been scarce on what to expect from Titans. The only confirmed characters to so far are Dick Grayson, Starfire and Raven. Dick will be the show’s main character, though there are conflicting reports about whether he’ll start out as Nightwing or be Robin first and eventually transition to his other crimefighting identity. Another report earlier this year suggested that the series will also feature Barbara Gordon as Oracle and the duo Hawk & Dove, though these members aren’t official.
Rather than have them be teenagers like their comic book counterparts, all the main heroes in Titans will be in their 20s, and some will be established heroes while others will be newcomers. The pilot is being written by Akiva Goldsman, whose past work includes A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code and Batman Forever. (He also wrote Batman & Robin, but let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.)
It’s possible that DC just doesn’t have time for Titans right now. Supergirl is only weeks away from airing on CBS, and Legends of Tomorrow is currently filming. That’s on top of the schedules for Arrow, The Flash and Gotham, and if we want to expand the DC parameters, let’s also include Vertigo shows iZombie and the upcoming Lucifer. With all this on their plate, DC may be waiting until things calm down before devoting more attention to Titans. It’s also possible that there’s been creative problems getting the Titans pilot just right, thus resulting in this excruciatingly long delay.
We’ll keep you apprised on any developments regarding Titans, be they positive or negative. But in the meantime, fans can look forward to DC’s other programming airing throughout the 2015-2016 TV season, starting with Gotham this past Monday.
