EDIT: I posted a video last night that needs some clarification. I received the scoop around 4:30 and needed to be out of the house by 6:30, which gave me a 2-hour window to film, edit, upload, and create a thumbnail. Working with 4K footage is a slow process, but somehow I made it work. That said, the original title was misleading. It was labeled “RUMOR: Timothée Chalamet Is Playing Dick Grayson in the Batman,” and the thumbnail had a big “EXCLUSIVE” on it. I regret those choices, but not the video. The title and thumbnail have been changed, as seen below.

A new casting call in North West England for March 2020 has gone out looking for “Circus skills” for a major action feature film. This sounds remarkably like it could be for The Batman, specifically depicting one of the most memorable scenes in the Batman mythos: the death of the Grayson family at Haly’s Circus. The Batman is filming between London and Liverpool. The Flying Graysons, a trapeze group famed for never using a net in their performances, were survived by their youngest, Dick Grayson. Dick is taken under the wing by Batman, and takes up the title mantle of the first Robin, eventually growing into the role of Nightwing.

Robin is by far the greatest sidekick character in the superhero genre. While the character has been portrayed to varying degrees of success in both live action and animated films and series in the past, there have been no efforts to use the character in any official capacity in a major motion picture for over 2 decades. With this news, that may appear to be changing.

This, of course, is speculation. We may not actually see the Flying Graysons or an onscreen Robin in the Batman, but there aren’t many large action films being shot in Liverpool in March 2020, aside from Matt Reeves’ The Batman, so it’s probable that they ARE indeed planning to film these scenes. It was reported in May 2019, according to Forbes’ Mark Hughes that he had heard report of Robin being considered for the film (as well as Catwoman, Penguin, and Riddler). And recently Vicky Depledge (Geeks Worldwide) has stated Dick was in an early draft of the script.

The next part of the theory is merely connecting dots, and the dots lead straight to Timothée Chalamet, who happens to be coming to London for another project very soon. We are not suggesting that Chalamet WILL play Dick Grayson, merely that there are a number of coincidences that line up pretty remarkably.

Rumors of Chalamet’s involvement have circulated since an October interview with Variety. Note what he says here: “people in the elevator would ask me when I was five-years-old, ‘What’s your name?’ and I would say Robin. Actually every director steered away from putting Robin [in a movie] — well, actually Zack Snyder had a flashback of Robin, but it was like three seconds and I don’t even know if it was Robin by name but they’ve steered away from it because it’s hard to do dramatically or something, and I … I’m not averse to those universes.”

The rumors even prompted for fan art of the character, including this from artist Mizuri on Instagram. Based on our first glimpse of the Batsuit, this fan art seems a bit unlikely at this stage.

What struck us was a recent conversation with Chalamet on Instagram with actress Zöe Kravits (who has been cast as Catwoman in the new film), and with the film’s cinematographer Greig Fraser. Again, this is Hollywood, and people know other people. So just because these parties tend to chat online does not by any means mean they need to be in an upcoming film together. But my informant believes it to be more than just friendly banter.

Could Timothée Chalamet play Dick Grayson? Well let’s look at his schedule. He recently finished filming both Denis Villenueve’s Dune and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. He has no other films lined up. He does have an upcoming play, however – more on that below. I’ve heard much tell about how he is simply too old to portray the character of Dick Grayson, and that the role should be given to someone, say, 15-17 years of age. To that I remind that the character he portrays in Dune, Paul Atreides, is a 15 year old boy. He has a young appearance, despite recently turning 24. He will also be portraying a student in The French Dispatch.

Chalamet is set to star in an upcoming play in London between April 11-May 23rd. It’ll be Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles, originally an Off-Broadway drama that ran in 2011 and 2012. He will reportedly be in London this upcoming Monday (Feb). The casting call for the circus performers listed it as a March 2020 shoot, and that leaves a little over a month of play for them to shoot that circus scene (whether for The Batman or not, we don’t have official word on), before rehearsals for 4000 Miles begin in earnest on the 6th of April. And if Chalamet is already in London practicing his performance, that would give him some room to jump over to Liverpool (about 4 hours away) for a quick shoot.

Please note, the Batman film will likely take place over some period of time. While the film will (and should) stick to adapting Bruce Wayne’s early life as the Bat, it might be conceivable that they’d choose to potentially leave the story open by ending it at the Circus. Perhaps in an end credits scene. If this is the case, Chalamet would be an obvious candidate, having previously worked with both Robert Pattinson and the DP Greig Fraser.

Will any of this actually happen? It remains to be seen. I hope you enjoy the theory/rumor. Apologies if we weren’t clear originally.