It wasn’t because the pilot sucked.  It wasn’t even because the script for the pilot stunk.  Warner Bros. Pictures Prexy Jeff Robinov killed the still gestating Graysons project because “the concept doesn’t fit the current strategy for the Batman franchise.”  According to Variety, insiders were saying that Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan “was uncomfortable with having a show relating to the Batman franchise on the air.”  Since Warner Bros. is desperate to get Nolan to helm a third Batman film, that would appear to be a pretty strong motive to deep six The Graysons, though studio officials insisted to Variety that the decision to can the project was Robinov’s and Robinov’s alone.

 

The Graysons was a superhero origin saga about Robin in the days before he became the Caped Crusader’s sidekick (see “CW Orders The Grayson’s Pilot”).  The CW was hoping that The Graysons could become a replacement for its Superman origin series Smallville, which is getting more than a little long in the tooth, and which, some, in the sort of paranoid delusion that flourishes in Tinseltown, blame for underperformance of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, which hit the theaters in 2006 when Smallville was at the height of its small screen popularity. 

 

Warner Bros. TV, which was just getting started on The Graysons project, is, according to the studio, “currently working on several replacement options for the CW.”