While #Restorethesnyderverse campaign is in full flow from DC fans who enjoyed Zack Snyder’s Justice League. While in essence, the campaign is mainly for completing Zack Snyder’s Justice League trilogy, the Snyderverse had also contained a lot of solo movies, like Cyborg, Batman, and Deathstroke’s individual origin stories. Recently Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello revealed his desire to have his own mini-series on HBO Max.
Deathstroke’s first appearance
The first proper scene with Deathstroke is the one which we see as a post-credit scene in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, where Slade Wilson meets with Superman Villain Lex Luthor on his yacht where Lex Luthor reveals that Batman’s real name is Bruce Wayne.
We also see him in the Knightmare scene where he’s one of the only ones who have survived Darkseid’s invasion alongside Batman, Cyborg, Flash, Joker, and Mera. They have to band together and battle against an Anti life controlled Superman and make sure they reverse this timeline to get rid of Darkseid.
“At the end of the film, I always envisioned him shaving his head into some kind of warlike, borderline suicide mission. This is it, I’m going to die like a warrior,’” said the actor, making an electric razor sound. “I explained that to Zack, and he said, ‘Great, let’s do it.’”
Too many canceled Deathstroke projects
But this wasn’t supposed to be the end of Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke. He was supposed to be the main antagonist in Ben Affleck’s Batman movie, have a solo origin movie and be a part of the Knightmare Justice League in Justice League 2.
Watch: Joe Manganiello on Zack Snyder’s Justice League and solo movie
He had made his own version of an origin story for the character and convinced director Gareth Evans to sign on for the project. He pitched this as a 40–50-million-dollar project which will serve as a backstory for the villain and whose runtime will be close to two hours. But when the WB Executives changed in 2017, the new bosses didn’t think that a villain origin story movie was a priority, so they cancelled the project.
Joe Manganiello wants Deathstroke on HBO Max
Furthermore, Manganiello revealed that he was in the running to appear in the sequel to David Ayer’s antihero movie Suicide Squad. But that didn’t happen when James Gunn decided to go in a different direction. Seeing the optimism and passion of fans to Restore The Snyder Verse, Joe Manganiello has also joined the movement by tweeting #DeathstrokeonHBOMax.
This is his best shot to play the iconic DC villain in his own mini-series, which will showcase Slade Wilson’s journey from his childhood to the army and then to becoming Deathstroke and taking on the Batman. If this series happens then we might also get to see Ben Affleck’s Batman taking on Deathstroke, which was supposed to be the plot of the Batman movie when Ben Affleck was supposed to be directing it.
The DC villain has taken the actor on a rollercoaster journey, and Manganiello won’t rule out Deathstroke being his future. Said the actor: “I think there’s going to be excited over continuing what Zack was up to.” Manganiello has put his best foot forward, now let’s see what HBO Max does.
