How long should Batman films go on without the Batfimily?

[Digifiend]

I expect to see a Robin soon. Who? Don't know. Dick's circus background is kind of hard to implement nowadays.

Is it? Just make Haley's Circus similar to Cirque de Soleil.

[Felipe Silveira]

Is it? Just make Haley's Circus similar to Cirque de Soleil.

no, it has to be the same as the comics, something a little out of time helps in the fantastic tone

[Triniking1234]

If they can shoehorn Catwoman all the time, they can squeeze in either Dick, Jason or Barbara.

[godisawesome]

I definitely think that brining in the Batfamily, or even just one or two members, is probably something the franchise needs, especially given the new WB regime’s seeming hatred of smaller scale uses of them.

Is it? Just make Haley's Circus similar to Cirque de Soleil.

no, it has to be the same as the comics, something a little out of time helps in the fantastic tone

I think a Cirque de Soleil-esque show is functionally and iconographically the same as the old school circus tent, and the Grayson’s being a touring family under contract with some larger franchise would still give them the nomadic background for Dick.

But here’s how I’d repackage him, and *maybe* some of the others, for The Batman’s fantasy-noir style:

- Much like how Batman’s already encountered Joker, he’s already solved the Grayson’s trapeze murder, brought in Tony Zucco, and seen to it that Dick was safe… and then Riddler’s flood rocked the city. Dick, who was already acting out and who Batman had to keep from taking risks when he had tried taking down Zucco himself at 12/13, is now a 14/15 year old street kid in Gotham’s flooded ruins, trying to look out for and help others.

Because Penguin’s trying to control the city’s underworld, Dick often sabotages and compromises Penguin’s plans, stealing what he can from Penguin’s henchmen, and giving it to the poor… and thus, is a “Robin Hood” to the city’s refugees. Because of this, he’s taken to tagging his exploits with a yellow “R”. He’s nowhere near the training he’d need to be Robin, but he’s already excelling at evasion, escape, scouting, and occasionally desperate ambushes of those Penguin send after him.

Penguin’s growing need to take out this pain in the ass is what gets Batman back in contact with Dick, who refuses to stop his own mission in a way that eerily resembles Bruce’s own drive; Bruce subdues him once or twice, but Dick manages to escape, until eventually Bruce takes him to the Batcave to try figuring something out… only for Dick to again escape and discover the Bruce Wayne secret. They work out a deal where Bruce will make sure Dick can protect himself and even take him on a single mission to try and “scare him straight…” but of course, Dick actually rescues Batman, and gets to down the Robin costume permanently (it’s black-and-dark-green body armor that he insists on spraying with red and yellow paint for his own iconography.)

- And if they wanted to go ahead and lay the groundwork for more Batfamily members… Dick had “copycat Robins” emulating him, and a local meme in Gotham is “We Are Robin,” where the other future Batfamily members could be involved, whether it’s Jason, Tim, Duke, or Babs, all in their own way - Jason as another, more “avaricious” saboteur with a habit of stealing tires, Tim and Babs as digital allies, and Duke as someone actually gathering the copycats and organizing them to shine the Batsignal whenever Batman’s needed.

[ComicNoobie]

I would love to see the Batfamily in a movie together. The odds of that happening are slim, at least seeing them suited up. At most I could see one Robin and Babs/Batgirl make a movie. Everyone else probably not and if they do it'll be a cameo of them in civilian form. I could see Jason, Steph, Tim, and Cassandra cameo as random street kids who Batman saves in the opener of a movie, but I doubt they'd join the Batfamily as much as I would love to see it.

Personally, I'm really tired of Catwoman in nearly every Batman movie. Either Bruce is solo or Catwoman shows up and it's been this way for years. Even though I really enjoyed The Batman, I want something new. I would love at least Dick Grayson to be his partner over another Catwoman.

[thefinalguy]

I feel the characters are big enough in pop culture that they don't need to be set up.

I don't expect the Batfam in the Reevesverse, and we've had four solo Batman movies in a 17 year-span; within 20, we'll have five going on six. At this point I say just go for it.

The family can just be Dick and Babs, it can have reached Tim and Cass, or even go for something different and have Duke and Damian front and center. I just want these characters to get their time to shine.

Batgirl could've been that, but we're moving backward from whatever that could've given us. These characters have held their own solos and stories they deserve their own movies if they can't be accommodated in whatever Batman is doing.

Also, animation would be the way to go if we ever expect to see the Batfam fully formed and on the big screen. Something that should happen.

[The Kid]

I'm ok with Robin but any more than that starts getting getting silly because 99% of the Batfam doesn't really have a separate 'niche' in Gotham. You can get away with that in the comics but not really in cinema. As for Robin, I'd say giving him another go is well overdue but I'm not going to beg for it. I'm fine with just getting good movies regardless

[Vakanai]

Doesn't matter. It's not about how long or whatever, it's about what the director and actors want to tell their story. Otherwise we get bad films and terrible takes on characters. I think most of us would rather not have a film with our favorite characters than one that does them terribly.

[Frontier]

I'm ok with Robin but any more than that starts getting getting silly because 99% of the Batfam doesn't really have a separate 'niche' in Gotham. You can get away with that in the comics but not really in cinema. As for Robin, I'd say giving him another go is well overdue but I'm not going to beg for it. I'm fine with just getting good movies regardless

I think you can definitely pull off Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing which is usually as far as it goes.

[Badou]

I think Dick's origin is fine for a movie where the main character runs around in a Batman costume. You don't really need to change it into some modern Cirque du Soleil thing I think. The classic circus imagery of a big top circus tent, a ring master in a top hat, circus clowns, trapeze performers, animals, and all sorts of bizarre circus "freaks" are fine. Even if the actual circus is no longer what it was a century ago many of these elements are still iconic. Where people instantly recognize what these things are even if they've never been to a circus. A good filmmaker could easily make it fit and have people buy in.

The problem is that the circus part of Dick's origin is very isolated. The Court of Owls story does give it more threads into a setting like Gotham, but I never understood why a DC didn't use it more. You have all these bizarre and odd villains in Gotham and Haly's Circus could have been used as this vehicle to introduce some of them into the setting. The Joker before he was "The Joker" would have fit perfectly as a circus clown in some early part of his life, Tweedledum and Tweedledee could fit, the Mad Hatter already has the look of someone from the circus, Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy fit perfectly as these bizarre and freakish attractions, and there are so many more you could list off. So it shouldn't just be used for Dick's origin but used as this avenue to introduce a lot of weird and bizarre elements into a Gotham overall.

[The Kid]

I think Dick's origin is fine for a movie where the main character runs around in a Batman costume. You don't really need to change it into some modern Cirque du Soleil thing I think. The classic circus imagery of a big top circus tent, a ring master in a top hat, circus clowns, trapeze performers, animals, and all sorts of bizarre circus "freaks" are fine. Even if the actual circus is no longer what it was a century ago many of these elements are still iconic. Where people instantly recognize what these things are even if they've never been to a circus. A good filmmaker could easily make it fit and have people buy in.

The problem is that the circus part of Dick's origin is very isolated. The Court of Owls story does give it more threads into a setting like Gotham, but I never understood why a DC didn't use it more. You have all these bizarre and odd villains in Gotham and Haly's Circus could have been used as this vehicle to introduce some of them into the setting. The Joker before he was "The Joker" would have fit perfectly as a circus clown in some early part of his life, Tweedledum and Tweedledee could fit, the Mad Hatter already has the look of someone from the circus, Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy fit perfectly as these bizarre and freakish attractions, and there are so many more you could list off. So it shouldn't just be used for Dick's origin but used as this avenue to introduce a lot of weird and bizarre elements into a Gotham overall.

Gotham always feels kinda retro so I think the circus fits in pretty easily. I do think any Robin used will likely be Dick just because he's the iconic one. Even Snyder's DCEU movies that featured a dead Robin forgoed Jason in favor of Dick (despite that not making sense) just because of his role in the overall comics. With Reeves apparently being a big fan of Dark Victory, I actually have a good feeling we will see Dick as Robin soon. And the villain thing doesn't mean much for the movies. They can make any villain associated with him in the films: Joker, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, Firefly, etc... I doubt they'll be too stringent to the comics in that regard

[Frontier]

I think Dick's origin is fine for a movie where the main character runs around in a Batman costume. You don't really need to change it into some modern Cirque du Soleil thing I think. The classic circus imagery of a big top circus tent, a ring master in a top hat, circus clowns, trapeze performers, animals, and all sorts of bizarre circus "freaks" are fine. Even if the actual circus is no longer what it was a century ago many of these elements are still iconic. Where people instantly recognize what these things are even if they've never been to a circus. A good filmmaker could easily make it fit and have people buy in.

The problem is that the circus part of Dick's origin is very isolated. The Court of Owls story does give it more threads into a setting like Gotham, but I never understood why a DC didn't use it more. You have all these bizarre and odd villains in Gotham and Haly's Circus could have been used as this vehicle to introduce some of them into the setting. The Joker before he was "The Joker" would have fit perfectly as a circus clown in some early part of his life, Tweedledum and Tweedledee could fit, the Mad Hatter already has the look of someone from the circus, Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy fit perfectly as these bizarre and freakish attractions, and there are so many more you could list off. So it shouldn't just be used for Dick's origin but used as this avenue to introduce a lot of weird and bizarre elements into a Gotham overall.

Connecting the villains to Haly's Circus just feels a bit much like how Snyder kept trying to have Bat-Rogues work for Wayne Enterprises.

[Badou]

Connecting the villains to Haly's Circus just feels a bit much like how Snyder kept trying to have Bat-Rogues work for Wayne Enterprises.

I feel like the circus connection should have happened naturally over decades. Over a Snyder trying to do it all at once like with Wayne Enterprises, but I guess it is more like Arkham Asylum. Arkham tends to be used as a vehicle to introduce weird things into Gotham, but that should have been spread out over places like Haly's too I think. So in context of a movie it probably makes it easier to use a strange setting like a circus to introduce bizarre or weird villains into a grounded Gotham setting. Once Haly's shut down in Gotham the workers would naturally filter into the city, or would have jumped to the city with the circus stopping there over the decades. The Gotham TV show is the first property to touch on this idea I think.

And like what The Kid said above, Gotham always feels retro by design. So a setting like a circus I think would fit fine when you have a places like Arkham Asylum. Since the whole asylum name and function is very dated as well. Those places don't really exist anymore and have been replaced with more modernized institutions and hospitals, but those places aren't as "colorful" as the traditional gothic inspired asylums. So the same idea would work for the traditional circus look and design.

[Frontier]

I feel like the circus connection should have happened naturally over decades. Over a Snyder trying to do it all at once like with Wayne Enterprises, but I guess it is more like Arkham Asylum. Arkham tends to be used as a vehicle to introduce weird things into Gotham, but that should have been spread out over places like Haly's too I think. So in context of a movie it probably makes it easier to use a strange setting like a circus to introduce bizarre or weird villains into a grounded Gotham setting. Once Haly's shut down in Gotham the workers would naturally filter into the city, or would have jumped to the city with the circus stopping there over the decades. The Gotham TV show is the first property to touch on this idea I think.

And like what The Kid said above, Gotham always feels retro by design. So a setting like a circus I think would fit fine when you have a places like Arkham Asylum. Since the whole asylum name and function is very dated as well. Those places don't really exist anymore and have been replaced with more modernized institutions and hospitals, but those places aren't as "colorful" as the traditional gothic inspired asylums. So the same idea would work for the traditional circus look and design.

Arkham ends up housing all the madness but the only major Rogue whose origin is tied to it is Harley, pretty much?

[Badou]

Arkham ends up housing all the madness but the only major Rogue whose origin is tied to it is Harley, pretty much?

I believe Hugo Strange has been tied to it as well as Scarecrow. Both have had jobs there in stories that changed their past. Then all of the Arkham family obviously. Also I think Victor Zsasz first appeared in an Arkham related story. Probably even more that I can't remember atm.

Edit: Yeah, Zsasz's first appearance was in Batman: The Last Arkham story arc.