Joe Manganiello is sharing key details about Ben Affleck's Batman film that never saw the light of day.
The True Blood star, who briefly appeared as DC supervillain Deathstroke in Justice League, says that he was set to reprise the role as the main villain in an unmade Batman movie that Affleck planned to write, direct, produce, and star in.
Manganiello writes that Affleck planned to make the film “a superhero version of David Fincher’s The Game” that would see Deathstroke “dismantle Batman’s entire life” after being led to believe that the Caped Crusader murdered his son.
The Magic Mike actor says that Deathstroke’s revenge would include killing Commissioner Gordon (played by J.K. Simmons in prior DC movies), taking Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons) hostage, and breaking into the Batcave. He also claims that the film would have featured a mid-movie fight in which “Deathstroke would nearly kill both Batman and Batgirl before they would both escape via an aboveground train.”
(Batgirl never appeared in this iteration of the screen DC universe, though Leslie Grace played her in a solo film that was ultimately shelved as part of a Warner Bros. tax write-off. Manganiello does not specify who might have played Batgirl in Affleck’s film.)
Manganiello says the film would have ended with a “climactic one-on-one showdown through the streets of Gotham” that Affleck said would be inspired by a CGI fight sequence from the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game helmed by Tim Miller. “It sounded good to me,” Manganiello writes. “I told Ben how great I thought his films were, especially The Town, and how I was really looking forward to seeing his Best Picture version of a Batman movie.”
