When Justice League was in the middle of shooting, Ben Affleck Tweeted out a screen test featuring Deathstroke, a character we would later learn was being played by Joe Manganiello and would appear as the villain in The Batman (a movie he was set to write and direct at the time - wishful thinking, eh?).
Recently, Manganiello sat down with Chris Hardwick for a chat - the full interview is below - and the topic of The Batman quickly came up. "When I met with Ben Affleck about Batman the meeting we were having was for Deathstroke," the actor confirms. "This is a real opportunity to figure out who this guy is on the inside. Like what he’s battling with. The best quote unquote — I hate calling them this but you know calling them a villain is understanding where they’re coming from."
The Batman clearly would have delved into what makes Slade Wilson tick then and that would have been fun to see, especially as Deathstroke probably isn't the first villain who comes to mind when thinking about a suitable big screen opponent for the Dark Knight. Instead, many fans were hoping to see the usual suspects like The Penguin, The Joker, Hush, or Red Hood (which would have rocked).
As for why he likes the character, he added: "There are villains who are the people who are opposing them but from the inside this is a person who is struggling with all types of things. I think it’s really interesting to tell that kind of a story and tell the truth emotionally of a story like that when you’re talking about a man who lost an eye, was betrayed, lost a son. These different types of aspects."
As for that planned solo movie for Deathstroke which will be directed by The Raid's Gareth Evans, Manganiello didn't say much but pointed to it being an origin story for the character.
"Somewhere along that way I know that it was announced where the studio… there was talks with Gareth Evans and talks about an origin movie. I’m not giving news. I spent six months prior to all of those phone calls writing a backstory that was turned into sixteen pages which got turned into a treatment which then led to my Skype call with Gareth." Do you want to see this spinoff happen?