DC ‘Titans’ Series Casts Beast Boy
As casting ramps up for DC’s new ‘Titans’ series, one key member of the team had been missing… until now. Yesterday, Warner Bros. Television announced Ryan Potter had landed the role as Garfield “Gar” Logan, aka Beast Boy, on the show, which is due to come to DC’s upcoming direct-to-consumer digital service in 2018… (I do which they’d come up with a proper name for it already!)
For those of you that don’t know the character, Gar contracted Sakutia as a child, a disease lethal to every species except the West African green monkey. His scientist parents, desperate to save their little boy, inject him with an untested serum that was supposed to turn him into the aforementioned monkey for 24hrs to cure him. Whilst the serum saves his life, it also has the side effect of turning his skin, eyes, and hair green, and giving him the ability to metamorph into any animal of his choice.
The character first appeared in ‘The Doom Patrol’ back in 1965, but has been strongly associated with the ‘Teen Titans’ since the key role he played in Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s seminal ‘New Teen Titans’ run in the 80s. He’s been a mainstay of the superhero team ever since.
Ryan Potter has appeared in various tv and film projects, but is probably best known as the voice of Hiro Hamada in Disney’s ‘Big Hero 6’ franchise. He’s an accomplished martial artist, which should help beating on those bad guys, and is pretty spot-on casting for the role of the wise-cracking shapeshifter.
The ‘Titans’ live-action tv series comes from Flash/Arrow (etc…) supremo Greg Berlanti, but will air on DC’s new streaming service, not The CW. The show is written by Akiva Goldsman (‘Star Trek: Discovery’), DC Entertainment President and Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns (‘The ‘Flash’, ‘Arrow’) and Berlanti himself.
Potter will join the previously announced cast which includes Teagan Croft as Raven, Anna Diop as Starfire, Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson and Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly as Hawk and Dove.
We don’t know yet if the DC direct-to-consumer digital service will be worldwide or only available in the US, so it’s unclear if we’ll need to pay for it in the UK, or if ‘Titans’ is likely to land on a normal broadcast service. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
