Joe Manganiello made his big screen debut as Deathstroke in Justice League's after-credits scene and while the original plan was for him to star in The Batman, we later heard that Warner Bros. had discussed a solo movie with The Raid director Gareth Evans. However, the filmmaker has now made it clear that while he did discuss the project with the studio at one time, those talks quickly fizzled out.
"I had a phone call which I think was publicized a bit, about Deathstroke with DC. We talked about that before, we had a few conversations," he explained. "One of the guys at DC and at Warner Brothers, one with Joe, who has been on the character for some time now, who is super passionate about that character, by the way. I've never met anyone who knows more about their character."
Evans went on to say that he started researching the character and was particularly fascinated by Slade Wilson's origin story because he likes to "figure out what the origin of a character is and what shapes them, what paints them as a personality." It was presumably the regime change at Warner Bros. which led to Deathstroke not becoming a reality as Evans hasn't spoken to anyone for a while.
"Nothing really went beyond those conversations. I haven't heard anything for a really long time. To be honest, every time I see an article written I keep wanting to ask, 'Okay, what is it you guys know that I don't know?' Because I haven't heard anything for a good while yet. So I don't know if that will ever come back full circle at some point. But I know I haven't had any conversation about that project for a long time now."
Well, that's disappointing! I guess, for now, it's stuck in development hell.
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