In 2016, Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke was lined up for a huge role in the DCEU. The villain was set to learn Batman's secret identity in Justice League's post-credits scene (courtesy of Lex Luthor), setting the stage for him to hunt down Bruce Wayne in Ben Affleck's version of The Batman.
That all changed when Affleck decided not to direct the movie, and in Joss Whedon's Justice League, Slade Wilson was enlisted to the "Injustice Society" instead. Despite the change, there were later rumblings about a Deathstroke spin-off helmed by The Raid's Gareth Evans, and we finally saw the original tease when Zack Snyder's Justice League was released in 2021.
Doing the rounds to promote his new book, Bloodlines, Manganiello reflected on his health struggles and the disappointment of learning that The Batman had been scrapped.
"I'm just thinking about what I need to do to get as healthy as possible to shoot this giant six-month action movie in a year from now," he recalled. "And I needed that. Everybody knows what happened. Batman got cancelled and I never—I mean I got to play the character again for like two minutes in the reshoots."
"And for the next six years there were just project after project and call for my agent after call for my agent about, 'Oh yeah, they're going to use your character in this. You're going to be in this. You're going to be the villain in Aquaman 2. You're going to be in Suicide Squad 2 with this director. No, this director. No, you versus Will Smith. Oh, it's going to be a standalone.' Am I lucky or unlucky?"
There are some big reveals here, and Deathstroke vs. Deadshot and a clash with Arthur Curry being on the table at various points is certainly interesting. However, as was so often the case in the DCEU, it seems these good ideas never got past the discussion stage.
Manganiello went on to express gratitude for the small amount of time he spent playing Slade Wilson:
"I'm lucky that I got that part, but at the time I felt like I was unlucky because I got this thing that then got cancelled and went away. So, I'm like, how unlucky am I? I feel like I'm cursed. I get this thing. It gives me hope, and now it's gone. And then all these other projects are now gone. But looking back, I was lucky that that thing came my way."
"That thing—like, if it wasn't for that role, I don't know that the reconnection would work. I don't know that I'm healthy enough. I don't know that I gain that weight back. I don't know that I can walk. I don't know that I can function the way that I do now. I don't know that mentally I'm in as good a place as I am now. That role. I have the helmet in my office, and it's the greatest accomplishment of my life."
For a time, the hope was that Manganiello might get a second chance; like Channing Tatum as Gambit, he never got the opportunity to properly play a character he loves. However, there's nothing to suggest he'll be cast in DC Studios' planned Deathstroke and Bane movie.