A long time ago, we reported that a live action version of Teen Titans will be coming to TV through TNT. And since then, things have kind of died down a little (or actually, quite a lot) and it had appeared that this series was truly dead when TNT decided to not pick it up on their schedule. However, just because TNT has decided to not invest in the show any longer, that doesn’t mean that the show has died out completely.
According to DC Comics themselves, they are still very much committed to making it happen, as their Chief Creative Officer Geoff John spoke recently to TV Line and while he didn’t confirm anything definite, he still showed interest in keeping the dream alive:
We [at DC] have known about [Turner nixing Titans] for months and months and months. That’s not new news to us. We have plans for Titans. It’s a huge piece of DC and we have plans
Now, he could simply just be giving fans lips service to keep people interested and talking about the characters even if it is a long shot from happening. However, if it is still going ahead, the question of which network will pick it up remains an issue. One possible network could be CW, who currently already do Arrow, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, all of which are popular shows on the network and CW President Mark Pedowitz has said that they are open to the possibilities of a fourth DC series on the network.
However, even then it may still be tricky as origin stories have already been told on these characters and now to have the Teen Titans presenting a different origin story of the younger super heroes could all a lot of confusion to their schedule. Teen Titans would also certainly be quite a big show to take on with a lot more characters to focus on and develop – which is great for TV, but expensive to put together the right ensemble to make it a success.
For those not familiar with the comic book series, Teen Titans, featured a team of mainly teenage sidekicks to such big time heroes as Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman. The team originally consisted of Robin (Dick Grayson), Kid Flash (Wally West), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy) and Aqualad (Garth), but eventually they would be joined by other teenaged heroes like Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy (Roy Harper) and the Doom Patrol’s Animal Boy (Gar Logan).
Akiva Goldsman was initially tasked with penning the pilot and whether they will be continuing with his take on the script or starting from scratch again will remain to be seen. The full reasons for this never getting off the ground have never been fully disclosed, though I wouldn’t be surprised if budgets and contractual disputes over the characters already in TV series has played a part in it.
However, John never said that it will definitely be coming to TV, so there is also still the possibility that they could turn it into a movie as well, something which Heroic Hollywood believes may be happening. This could certainly be another angle for DC to pursue and would certainly free them from needing to worry about continuity with the TV series characters, though with the Justice League movies in the work, working this in could be an issue. For now though, there is still an animated film Justice League Vs. Teen Titans to look forward to which DC comics will be releasing directly to video later this year. I know its not what we want, but its what they can offer for now.
What do you think – is this a series that would work better on TV or in a movie? And who out of the up and coming actors and actresses would best suit the characters?
Last Updated: February 3, 2016
