Warner Brothers have announced this week that they’ve got another new superhero franchise in the works — an adaptation of the long-running DC comic The Teen Titans. The original comic debuted in the 60’s and featured a team consisting of the teenaged sidekicks to some of DC’s more prominent heroes including Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy and Aqualad. As such, the original series (I think) is seen as a bit of a joke, but they revitalized it in the 80’s with darker, more mature storylines and some new characters including Cyborg, Starfire and Raven. The Teen Titans was also made into a Cartoon Network animated series recently, which makes it an ideal property to adapt to a live action movie as all the kiddies will be familiar with it.

I’m generally a fan of comics involving superhero teams, and I’d be all for seeing this on the big screen, except for a comment from producer Akiva Goldsman, who said “the tone will be consistent with such recent Warners’ comic book fare as Batman Begins, Superman Returns and the upcoming Watchmen”. To me, Teen Titans is a comic that aims at a younger audience and is begging to be done with a somewhat lighter tone. I’m sure there are fans of the comic who would disagree with me, but I don’t know how seriously I could take this. The full line-up of characters has yet to be announced, but it appears they will be using Nightwing instead of Robin. Mark Verheiden (Timecop) has been hired the write the script, who recently penned Bruce Campbell’s upcoming comedy My Name is Bruce — another reason why they should inject a bit of comedy into this! I suppose his work on Smallville and the new Battlestar Galactica will be more in line with what the producers want though.