Robin has been many things over the past 86 years: boy wonder, sidekick, Nightwing, Teen Titan and the reason Adam West’s Batman always had someone to say “Holy” at. He has never, until now, been a puppet. DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran has confirmed to Collider that Mason Thames, star of The Black Phone and the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, will voice Dick Grayson in Dynamic Duo, an animated film being made in an unusual new way.
Safran made it sound like a matter of destiny. “We always talk about wanting volunteers and not recruits to be part of the DCU,” he told Collider, “and Mason always wanted to be Dick Grayson. He just did.” Anyone who watched Thames spend The Black Phone locked in a basement by Ethan Hawke will agree that he has earned a costume with a cape.
The film is being made by Swaybox Studios in New Orleans, whose co-founder Arthur Mintz directs, with Theresa Andersson producing. Swaybox combines computer animation, stop-motion and real-time puppetry, with performers working the characters live rather than nudging them a frame at a time. Safran isn’t shy about the claim: “I think that the Swaybox technology is as original today as Pixar was when it did Toy Story.” That’s a bold thing to say about any studio, let alone one making a superhero film, but after Spider-Verse proved that audiences will turn up for comic book animation that looks like nothing else, it’s not an outlandish bet.
The story goes right back to the beginning. Dynamic Duo follows Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, the first two Robins, as young friends whose lives later go in very different directions. Comics readers will remember just how different. Jason was famously killed off in 1988’s “A Death in the Family”, after DC let readers phone in and vote on whether he should live, and he later returned as the Red Hood. Collider’s credits list Logan Kim as Jason Todd, with Lee Pace and Steve Buscemi among the cast, and Matthew Aldrich, Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter as writers, though DC hasn’t formally announced anyone beyond Thames. Collider gives a release date of 22 September 2028. Earlier reports had it down for June, so treat the date as provisional.
It’s an odd and rather appealing project for a DCU that has so far been busy with Superman, Supergirl and Clayface. A Robin origin story told with puppets is either a stroke of genius or the sort of idea that sounds wonderful in a pitch meeting at two in the morning. But with Matt Reeves and James Gunn among the producers, DC clearly takes it seriously.
There is, of course, one obvious question that nobody has yet answered. If the boy wonders are puppets, who’s pulling Batman’s strings? Given the state of most Gotham City councils, probably the Penguin.
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