Joe Manganiello never got the opportunity to really dive into the DC character Deathstroke. He only appeared once as the character briefly in Justice League, and that was supposed to set up his role in Ben Affleck’s The Batman. But, in the end, things didn’t work out the way that the actor hoped it would when The Batman film project fell apart.
Manganiello actually ended up writing a script for a Deathstroke movie after all of that, and it’s a script that he was pushing at Warner Bros. In fact, the script actually had some fans at the studio before they decided to hire James Gunn and Peter Safran to reboot the DC cinematic universe.
After years of trying to get this movie to get made, Gunn had to convince Managaniello to let it go. During an interview with CB, he explained:
“James [Gunn] is my buddy, and James and I had a conversation about it because Jim lee over at DC Comics wanted me to create a graphic novel series based on the screenplay that I wrote for the Deathstroke origin film that, when they were dismantling the DCEU, that went to the wayside as well. Jim read it, and wanted it to be a graphic novel series, but no one could assure me that, if it garnered the attention of directors and producers, that I couldn’t be attached. So I had to let it go. James Gunn was just like, ‘Let it go.'”
James Gunn is now in the position where he has to be the killer of dreams, even when it comes to his friends. Not a fun situation to be in, but business is business. Hopefully, somewhere down the line Gunn does find a role for Manganiello in the DCU.
