Having originally joined the DC Extended Universe to take on the role of the main villain in The Batman prior to Ben Affleck’s departure, Joe Manganiello’s Slade Wilson made his debut in the post-credits scene of Justice League, which was intended to introduce the character ahead of a Deathstroke solo movie.
Gareth Evans, direct of The Raid and Apostle, signed on to direct the film back in 2017, but like many DCEU projects, Deathstroke languished in development hell before quietly fizzling out. Now, during a promotional interview with Yahoo Movies to promote his new series Gangs of London, Evans has explained what he’d hope to do with the movie.
“I was actually quite enthused and excited about [Deathstroke] back in the day, when it was first pitched to me. I met with them, and talked to them about it, and was certainly attached to it at a certain point,” said Evans. “I’ve spoken to Joe Manganiello, who was attached to star as Deathstroke. I spoke to him a while back, and we both lamented the fact that it didn’t happen. But yeah, I don’t really have much more than that, in terms of anything lately on it.”
“The plan was, I wanted to tell something that would be a lean story, that would be kind of an origin of that character,” he continued. “Something that felt like it could be 100 minutes or 110 minutes long, max – not to go over the two hour period with it. Back then, I was massively influenced by the noir films coming out of South Korea, so that was my pitch. I was like, these films are amazing: the texture, and the tones of colours, the grit and the aggression of them is super interesting to use to tell Deathstroke’s story.”
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