Warner Bros. has announced another film for their DCEU, taking another stab at a villain based movie—Deathstroke. The film joins a slew of other planned, undated films, that Warner Bros. plans to release, including The Batman, Flashpoint, an untitled Deadshot film, and nearly a dozen others. Although nothing is official, Gareth Evans, director of The Raid, is in early talk to write/direct. Deathstroke was originally going to appear in The Batman, back when Ben Affleck was set to direct. The character’s status in The Batman, now being helmed by Matt Reeves, is currently unclear.
Joe Manganiello was previously attached to the role and, if rumors are true, it appears he’ll still be attached to the role in its solo outing. Manganiello is no stranger to the comic book franchise, previously playing Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. While you scroll his IMDB page, you may notice many comedy based credits, he has been in dramas like One Tree Hill and True Blood. Mix those acting chops with his love of Dungeons & Dragons, his geek credits should make you very excited to see his take on Deathstroke.
OUTSIDE THE DCEU
Marv Wolfman and George Pérez created Deathstroke, a DC supervillain, in 1980. Originally, the archenemy of the Teen Titans, he’s been developed over the years as an adversary of other DC heroes. He’s also been portrayed as an antihero trying to redeem himself for his past misdeeds. In other media, he’s been voiced by Ron Perlman, Thomas Gibson, John DiMaggio, and Bruce Davison.
On CW’s Arrow, Manu Bennett has played the character who has gone from friend to foe and to friend again. Bennett’s portrayal has been well received by fans; they even created a campaign to get The CW to put a spinoff in production. While the chances of that are slim, we can rest easy in knowing that we’ll be seeing Deathstroke hit the big screen. Most likely with Joe Manganiello starring and Gareth Evans directing.