TITANS
F*@K BatmanW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^069
iterations. Now, it’s a year or so after. It’s always
been that story of, ‘I have become my father in a
way I’d rather not be’.”
As is clear in the trailers, Titans doesn’t shy
away from the brutality of vigilante life. In terms
of the tone of the show, Goldsman describes it
as “the close cousin to the Marvel Netfl ix shows”,
but that Titans is “a little bit more colourful, in
terms of both characterisation and humour”.
And although the producers state that their
inspiration has come from the Wolfman/Perez
era of Teen Titans, we shouldn’t expect slavish
adaptations of famous storylines. “Although the
stories are similar and it’s all the same people
from the comic books, our [stories] and how we
built our relationships are pretty unique to our
TV series,” Thwaites explains.
Kelly came on board on the strength of how
the tone of the show was pitched to her: “They
said it was going to be very different to any
other superhero show you’ve seen. They said it
was going to be more real, more dark and more
grounded than anything else. And I think they’ve
stayed pretty true to that. They’ve found a great
balance. They’ve kept the superhero aspect of
it, which is obviously very important. It’s even
better than what they said it would be.”
Unsurprisingly, the pressure to make a version
of Titans that would please the team’s many
generations of fans was a massive challenge.
“The great news about Titans is, a lot of people
have an idea about what Titans is. The terrible
news about Titans is, a lot of people have an
idea what Titans is,” Goldsman chuckles. “But it
balances out. I think if you do a good enough
job delivering an object people will fi nd it.”
Titans launches on Netfl ix on 11 January 2019.
There’s some light in
amongst the angst.Teagan Croft as
empath Raven.There are
no nipples on
this Bat-suit
As with all superhero shows, costumes
play a big part – especially when
you’re trying to bring an iconic costume
off the page. The costumes for the
Titans were certainly a mixed bag for
the cast. Brenton Thwaites describes his
Robin costume as “very ‘active’ friendly.
I could do all my own stunts in it.”
Which is a lot more than could be
said of the other characters: “Hawk can
barely scratch his arse in his costume!”
Thwaites laughs.
Alan Ritchson certainly had a tough
time with his Hawk costume, which
is faithful to the comics but next to
impossible to wear. He tells us it “used
to be put together with bolts because
the cape is so heavy, the cape is 30
pounds or something.
“Those wings have steel rods in them
to keep them from moving in a way
they shouldn’t move. It’s just so heavy. It
was bolted and screwed together and I
would then take it off at the end of the
day and my chest would be bleeding,
there would be bruises all over [me]...
it was awful.
“So then they were like ‘alright, we
need to fi x this’, so they would get super
Velcro manufactured for them that’s like
stronger than any other kind of Velcro.
So it works now, I’m not bleeding at
the end of the day but it’s just not the
most comfortable thing. It takes like four
people to put it on.”