The DC Role Cobra Kai's Tanner Buchanan Wants To Play In Robert Pattinson's Batman Films

Last week one of Cobra Kai’s own Xolo Maridueña officially joined the DCEU when it was announced the 20-year-old actor is set to play Blue Beetle in a live-action movie. We’re excited to see the Netflix phenomenon’s Miguel Diaz join the superhero genre after training with the likes of William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence in the art of karate. But naturally, we’d love to see Tanner Buchanan enter into the superhero genre as well.

When CinemaBlend had the chance to speak to Buchanan for his upcoming Netflix film He’s All That, I asked him about his own interest in the comic book world and he already had the perfect answer locked and loaded. As he said:

I’ve been a superhero fan my entire life. I’m a big comic guy, big superhero guy. Also, congratulations to Xolo, I did call him on the phone already, but congratulations to him because that’s fantastic, you know the Latinx community is getting to shine a little bit in that world that hopefully continues. But yeah, the one I’ve recently wanted to play is maybe not a superhero but a sidekick: Robin. I really want to play Robin to Robert Pattinson’s Batman. I’m very specific about what I want to do with that and then maybe go on to play Nightwing. I’ll go down a deep hole if I keep talking about superheroes, so I’ll leave it at that.

From Robby to Robin? Ok, this has to happen, Warner Bros.! Tanner Buchanan is well suited to take on Batman’s sidekick and he knows it. But interestingly enough, the angle he’d want to go is through Matt Reeves’ The Batman vision, which begins in 2022. Once his character is established alongside Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, Buchanan wants to take it so far as to become Robin’s later identity of Nightwing later on.

It’s especially great to hear that Tanner Buchanan is such a huge fan of comic books already, and is aspiring to the role as he congratulates his Cobra Kai costar on his Blue Beetle film. The 22-year-old broke out, along with the upcoming DCEU star, especially as the series made its way to Netflix last summer and has since continued on the platform as one of their biggest hits.

The actor is a central part of Cobra Kai as the estranged son of Johnny Lawrence and the mentee of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso, set to return this December. Tanner Buchanan has already had some serious fight training for Cobra Kai that he could bring to the DCEU. Now that this idea is in our heads, we can’t think of anyone better for the role.

For now, Tanner Buchanan stars in He’s All That for Netflix, a remake of 1999’s She’s All That coming August 27. The movie pairs him up with TikTok star Addison Rae as her social media influencer character gives his outcast character a makeover based on a bet. The Batman starring Robert Pattinson doesn’t have a Robin yet, but if the movie becomes a hit when it hits theaters on March 4, 2022 perhaps the bat signal can turn to Dick Grayson.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.