Chris McKay

With Warner Bros. sharing updates for so many of its DCEU films at this past month’s Comic-Con, you’d be forgiven for overlooking the in-production films that were absent from the presentations. Films like Chris McKay‘s Nightwing. Earlier this year, McKay explained that his Nightwing movie would serve as a kind of counter to the traditional Batman films - exploring what it’s like to come from nothing instead of a life of privilege - and fans who loved The LEGO Batman Movie were cautiously optimistic about a standalone Dick Grayson film. So it came as a bit of a surprise, then, when the DCEU executives remained silent on their latest project.

In 17 days of release, The LEGO Batman Movie has made $133 million in the United States, and nearly $100 million overseas. Not too shabby; about 17 days of release, its predecessor, The LEGO Movie, had made $183 million domestically. The good, toyetic times will keep rolling with The LEGO Movie 2 which, at one point was going to be directed by Chris McKay, until he left the project to make LEGO Batman. Speaking about the project on the Shanlian on Batman podcast he revealed a little bit about what the film is going to be.

I’m going to confess something: I don’t really understand the logic behind a Nightwing movie. It’s not that I don’t like the character. As a teenager, I was fascinated with the strained relationships that Dick Grayson and Tim Drake had with their mentor Bruce Wayne, and any Batman comic where the past and present Robins fought crime together without Batman’s involvement was a must-own in my book. As a 13-year-old, Grayson seemed like the cool camp counselor who would talk to you like you were already an adult.

In yet another sign that Warner Bros. has learned almost nothing from its recent misfires, the studio has reportedly added a Nightwing project to its upcoming DCEU slate, with The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay in final negotiations to helm. Although the studio recently hit some speed bumps with Ben Affleck’s Batman film, and there are still clearly some (fairly significant) wrinkles being worked out with their superhero universe, it seems that WB is determined to keep plowing through this thing one way or another.

There’s one thought that many of us probably have while watching pop culture mashup extravaganzas The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie: How much did they have to SPEND on all of this? Not only is it packed with classic Batman references, The LEGO Batman Movie features an even more impressive array of properties than the first in its insane latter half, which involved a lot of secrecy and a lot of lawyers. [Be warned: this post contains major SPOILERS for The LEGO Batman Movie.]

The LEGO Batman Movie, now playing in theaters (and Palace Cinema LEGO sets) everywhere, works perfectly well for any audience, regardless of their familiarity with Batman, LEGO or otherwise. For viewers who do know the nearly 80-year history of its title character, however, the film is a treasure trove of references. Following his debut in the pages of 1939’s Detective Comics #27, Batman quickly became one of the most famous heroes in all of comics, and eventually spawned television shows, movies, toys, video games, and countless pieces of merchandise, almost all of which get referenced in Chris McKay’s LEGO Batman Movie in some way, shape, or form.

It’s a question that has perplexed Batman villains since at least 1989: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Finally, we have an answer. The LEGO Store. The one a few blocks from Warner Bros.’ New York offices currently sells at least eight different LEGO Batman sets, all of which appear in various forms in The LEGO Batman Movie. The film is, like The LEGO Movie before it, a feature-length toy commercial — and, like The LEGO Movie before it, The LEGO Batman Movie is far more entertaining than a giant piece of crass commercialism has any right to be.

LEGO Batman was the unexpected standout star of 2014’s The LEGO Movie, Will Arnett voicing the character with the exact right blend of weird humor and inappropriate gravitas. Fans loved him so much that he’s getting his own movie, and those who have kept up with all the filmic Batman iterations of the past will be excited to hear the latest casting news: Billy Dee Williams, who played District Attorney Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman, will be voicing Two-Face in The LEGO Batman Movie.

Sony recently admitted they need franchises as they're plotting to pump out a new 'Spider-Man' movie every year. It seems another possible franchise for the studio is a big screen adaptation of 'Masters of the Universe,' and now that Jon M. Chu is off the project, they've narrowed their list to three filmmakers who could bring us the adventures of Prince Adam and his alter ego He-Man.