The original plan for Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke was to use Justice League to set the stage for Slade Wilson taking on the Caped Crusader in The Batman. That all changed with Joss Whedon's reshoots and Ben Affleck's decision to no longer direct or star in that spinoff movie.
A Deathstroke solo outing was also in development, with The Raid's Gareth Evans attached to direct. That's another project which appears to have fallen apart, but Manganiello has now shed a little more light on what was planned for the DC Comics adaptation in an interview with Yahoo.
"I worked with an Oscar-nominated writer on that treatment, and it was one of those projects that got canceled during that period," the actor revealed, adding that he spent six months working on Deathstroke. "There were maybe seven different Deathstroke projects that all didn't happen over the course of four years. It’s one of those funny things in Hollywood and in life where you’ve just got to let it go."
Manganiello then went on talk about being given the opportunity to return as Deathstroke in the "Snyder Cut" of Justice League, revealing that Zack Snyder actually asked if there was anything he wanted to do differently this time around.
"Some of those elements I snuck into this round," he revealed, referring to the Mohawk we know Deathstroke will have. "The greatest warriors are the ones who walk into battle already dead or assuming that they’re going to die — they’re looking for someone who could actually kill them. There’s almost an excitement around that, like ‘Is today going to be the day?’"
"So there was a climatic moment in my standalone story where I wanted Slade to shave his head into this war-like Mohawk knowing that he was going off to his own death. I said to Zack, ‘I always envisioned him with a big white Mohawk,’ and he was totally down for it."
The stakes were clearly going to be high in Deathstroke, but Manganiello is optimistic that his Justice League role will once again increase the chances of that solo outing seeing the light of day..
"Hopefully this will reinvigorate interest from the fans as far as wanting to see this version of the character get told. We landed on an origin story that everyone I’ve ever pitched it to has gone crazy for."
What sort of role Deathstroke is going to play in Zack Snyder's Justice League remains to be seen, though we wouldn't be overly surprised if he somehow factors into those "Knightmare" scenes with The Joker (that or the filmmaker is planning to reshoot that post-credits scene).