A Deathstroke Movie Is Officially In The Works

Flickering Myth- Last year it was revealed that True Blood star Joe Manganiello had been cast as the DC assassin and supervillian Slade Wilson, better known as Deathstroke, for Ben Affleck’s The Batman. His role came into question however when Affleck stepped down as director earlier this year and Matt Reeves was hired, with Reeves starting from scratch on the script and sparking rumors that Manganiello would no longer be part of the DCEU. Well, The Wrap has now revealed that Manganiello will indeed still star in the role, albeit in his own Deathstroke film with The Raid‘s Gareth Evans in talks to write and direct!

This was kinda out of nowhere, but I’m here for it! We got a glimpse of Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke in this screen test for Ben Affleck’s Batman film, and he looked real cool (for how short it was)!

Now that Affleck isn’t directing the movie, they’re probably scrapping his script (that seems like a bad idea), but it’s given us an entirely new flick. Joe Manganiello will now star as Slade Wilson in his OWN movie, and it’s unreported whether or not he’ll have any involvement in the Batman movie. I say it seems like a bad idea to scrap Affleck’s script because he’s the bomb (in Phantoms yo) and has a great track record as a writer. He’s also a long time Batman fan and probably knows the character really well, as starting off with a relatively unknown villain was a perfect call ala Christopher Nolan kicking off The Dark Knight trilogy with Ra’s Al Ghul. I am the resident DCEU defender though, and a gigantic Batman fan, so obviously I’ve got some faith here, especially with Gareth Evans as director.

Deathstroke is a really badass villain, too. He started off in the New Teen Titans as a mercenary for hire who carried not only a fuck ton of guns, but swords as well. Kinda like Deadpool, but homeboy’s dead SERIOUS. He has had a long running feud with Batman and the Teen Titans since the early 90’s, and appears in some sick comics such as Identity Crisis, Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin, and he was made most famous in recent video games – Batman: Arkham Knight and Injustice: Gods Among Us.

P.S. Joe Manganiello was in a segment with Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Monday Night RAW I went to once and nobody could pronounce his name. It was hysterical.