Although Warner Bros.’ DC Films panel at the San Diego Comic-Con delivered the first trailers for Aquaman and Shazam!, as well as some early Wonder Woman 1984 footage, rumours about an announcement on the future DC movie slate failed to materialise, leaving fans wondering which of the many projects in development are still moving forward.
Well, according to Joe Manganiello, the Deathstroke solo movie remains on the table, with the actor telling MTV:
“I say, ‘It’s in the works,’ because it is and there’s nothing further that I can say without speaking out of school… because I’m part of a team, I’m a part of a locker room – you don’t talk outside the locker room. But all I can say is, for the hardcore fans, it’s in the works. They want the character to happen, it’s just when he happens. I think everybody is committed to that.”
It certainly hasn’t been plain sailing for Manganiello and Deathstroke, with the actor originally cast to portray Slade Wilson as the villain in The Batman before Ben Affleck exited the director’s chair and Matt Reeves decided to go in a different direction.
It was then announced last October than Manganiello would be teaming with The Raid director Gareth Evans on a Deathstroke solo movie, before his surprise appearance in the post-credits scene of Justice League teased a possible Injustice League / Legion of Doom supervillain team-up (plans which, if rumours are to be believed, have now been scrapped).
Further questions were raised about the status of the Deathstroke movie last month when Evans revealed that he was looking to shoot a TV show and several films in Wales, which would keep him tied up “for the foreseeable future”, while a Redditor then claimed that Manganiello had told a fan at a convention that Slade Wilson will next be popping up as the main bad guy in Suicide Squad.
So, like much of the DCEU, the plans for Sladw Wilson seem up in the air at the moment, with little more than rumour and speculation to go on. But, for the time being at least, it seems that a Deathstroke movie remains a possibility.