Real Reason Why Titans-Arrowverse Crossover Didn’t Even
The Arrowverse has seen several crossover events throughout the years, but none can compare to what the brand accomplished during Crisis On Infinite Earths in 2019. From start to end, the five-episode crossover event was a cameo-filled affair that paid homage to old DC movies and TV series while also unexpectedly highlighting contemporary projects. The plot hinges around the collapse of the Multiverse, which means that other Earths will be discovered during the crossover event.
Aside from Ezra Miller’s Flash from the DCEU, several characters from various DC projects made appearances, including Alexander Knox from Tim Burton’s Batman, Tom Welling’s Clark Kent from Smallville, and many Titans heroes. Even though Crisis is the most ambitious DC crossover yet, there are still some notable exclusions, such as Titans’ Dick Grayson, played by Brendon Thwaites. The actor has now disclosed the legit reason for his absence.
“If you crossover to a different show, they treat it like a different job” – Brenton Thwaites
The actor explained why he turned down an offer to film sequences for the 2019-20 Arrowverse event, which had guest appearances from various former and present DC stars, in an interview with Cosmic Circus.
“It’s a different deal thing, right? If you crossover to a different show, they treat it like a different job, and you know you gotta fly to that place, although the studio and whoever’s in charge will make it work, I feel like… you know, you get a choice, right? You get a choice to read the script, to study the project and, you know, to be a part of what you want to be a part of; and uh… it was just not something that I wanted to do at the time.”
“I mean, whether I believed that it should cross over or not, it’s not really beside the point, I just think that… you know, Titans is such a unique show, the way it looks, the way it feels, the characters, and I kind of… I don’t know, I selfishly want to preserve, you know, the uniqueness of that,” he continued.
Despite Thwaites’ refusal to film any scenes for “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” Nightwing from the Titans made an appearance in the crossover using archive footage from HBO’s Max series. During the Titans Panel at the 2022 Motor City Comic-Con, the actor first announced that he had been asked for the Arrowverse event. He noted that he found crossovers to be somewhat “a little bit of a… attention grab […] if it doesn’t really support both storylines. If it does, great. If the stories are really enriched and kind of drawn out and follow this wonderful arc that interweaves with the other [shows] then fantastic. But if it’s really just for a cross-promotional thing then it feels funny to be a part of it.”
