joe-manganiello

It seems that the first villain which Ben Affleck‘s ‘Batman‘ will square off again in the hero’s solo outing will be Joe Manganiello (‘True Blood’,’Magic Mike’) as Deathstroke. Now, there is no word as to if the Dark Knight will be going up against multiple villains in his rogue gallery or just Deathstroke this time around but this is the first official casting we’ve heard for the film and might mean that the unannounced release of the film will be happening sooner than later.

During an interview about his new role overseeing the Warner Brothers movies for DC Comics, DC Entertainment president and chief creative officer Geoff Johns confirmed the casting though wouldn’t say if Deathstroke may cameo in ‘Justice League’.

We’ve known since late last month that Deathstroke would likely be appearing in Affleck’s ‘Batman’ movie when he posted 30 seconds of test footage to Twitter on someone, apparently Manganiello, in costume which you can see below:

Johns wouldn’t say when the film is due to be released though with the current slate one would imagine that 2018 would be the earliest release date unless they are already secretly filming the movie.

For those unfamiliar with Deathstroke, he was originally a Teen Titans enemy named Slade Joseph Wilson that is a mercenary and assassin. Marvel spoofed the character with Deadpool. After evolving as a character he has often been pitted against Batman and has been in multiple animated films, shows, and the live-action ‘Arrow’ on The Cw. Often a direct enemy of Nightwing it has to make you wonder if we might be having one of the ex-Robin’s show up in the upcoming film.

We don’t know if Deathstroke will be the only villain featured here or if Jared Leto‘s Joker will be showing up as well. It would almost seem like a missed opportunity to not include him to explain more of his character after how he ended up being portrayed in ‘Suicide Squad‘.

Are you happy to hear that Joe Manganiello is going to play Deathstroke in the next ‘Batman’ movie? Do you think we’ll see another villain appear as well? Share your thoughts below!

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!