Some unexpected, but exciting comic book movie news to take us into the weekend here, with two of the Dark Knight's most formidable foes joining forces for a new live-action DCU movie.
THR reports that a Bane and Deathstroke project is officially in development at DC Studios. Details are sparse, but we know that Captain America: Brave New World writer Matthew Orton is working on the script. No director is attached.
Both characters have previously appeared on the big screen, with Tom Hardy playing Bane in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, and Joe Manganiello making a (very) brief appearance as ruthless mercenary Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke, in the post-credits scene of Joss Whedon's theatrically-released Justice League movie.
Dave Bautista has often expressed interest in playing Bane, so it'll be interesting to see if he gets in touch with his old friend and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn now that the character is set to make his DCU debut.
Whether these villains will be teaming up to take on an even bigger threat or facing-off against each other remains to be seen, but we're sure they will clash beforehand even if they do ultimately put their differences aside.
We assume the plan is for one or both of these bad guys to come up against the DCU's new take on Batman at some point, possibly even in the planned The Brave and The Bold movie - though there's no mention of this in the trade report.
What do you make of this news? Let us know in the comments section down below.
"This is the introduction of the DCU's Batman," Gunn said of the Brave and the Bold movie when the Gods and Monsters slate was announced. "This is the story of Damian Wayne, who is Batman's actual son who we didn't know existed for the first eight to 10 years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin. He's a little son of a bitch. He's my favorite Robin. It's based on the Grant Morrison comic book's run, which is one of my favorite Batman runs, and we are putting that all together right now."
Peter Safran added, "And this is obviously a feature film, and it's going to feature other members of the extended 'Bat-family', just because we feel like they've been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long."