Batman needs a Robin, and this 'Big Hero' star has big dreams of playing him
Boy Wonder no more: Actor Ryan Potter posted a fight video that shows he could step right in as the Caped Crusader's sidekick.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Peanut butter needs jelly, and Batman needs Robin. And the Boy Wonder doesn't need to be a groveling little pup, he can be just as much a superhero as the Dark Knight himself.
Actor Ryan Potter, who voiced Hiro in "Big Hero 6," believes he can make Robin fly like an eagle -- a martial-arts-practising, weapon-wielding, unstoppable eagle -- and he's demonstrating his abilities in a fight video that went up on YouTube Sunday.
The minute-long video was choreographed and shot in under three hours, and features Potter taking on a number of armed and unarmed thuggish types, using his fleet feet, fast fists, a bo staff, and some twirls and leaps that would do the Olympic gymnastics team proud.
At the end, barely breathing hard, he addresses Batman star Ben Affleck, saying, "Hey Ben, like Tim said, Batman needs a Robin." (Tim as in Tim Drake, the version of Robin who delivered that line in the comics.) Batman fans observed that Potter's choice of a bo staff is right on target, as that's a favorite weapon of Drake.
Fans who commented on the YouTube video and on social media were overwhelmingly rooting for him to take the Robin role. Raised in Japan until he was seven, Potter, 21, has a Japanese father and American mother, and would be a rare Asian-American face in the cinematic superhero lineup.
Potter also hasn't been afraid to tweet directly at Affleck.
At press time, the actor had not responded.