Ben Affleck is currently directing and starring in the newest Batman film, which is, as yet, untitled. Yesterday, through his Twitter account, Affleck tweeted a short video of a mysterious actor playing the film’s mysterious villain, a super gun-toting assassin that fans instantly recognized as Deathstroke. Deathstroke merely loomed in slow-motion toward the camera, but it looked strangely accurate to the comic book version of the character. Speculation began immediately. It was confirmed this morning, in an interview with the DC executive Geoff Johns in The Wall Street Journal, that Deathstroke will be played by the hunky Joe Manganiello, star of Magic Mike XXL and Pee Wee’s Big Holiday.
Deathstroke was a villain created in 1980 to face off against the Teen Titans. Deathstroke is a super mercenary who frequently faced off against Batman and The Green Arrow. He is also the source of some contention between comic book fans, as the Marvel character Deadpool (who starred in his own hit movie in February) was clearly inspired by (some would say “ripped off”) Deathstroke.
This would not be the first foray into the superhero genre for Manganiello. He previously played Flash Thompson, Peter Parker’s high school bully in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.
DC executives have announced a good deal of their upcoming superhero films – two of the films have been given release dates but remain unnamed. Affleck’s untitled Batman film will likely be one of those unnamed films, meaning it is slated to be released either on October 5th, 2018 or November 1st, 2019. That will make it either the 8th or the 11th film in the DCEU film series.
Top Image: Warner Bros.
Witney Seibold is a longtime contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
