Ben Affleck's Canceled Batman Movie Only Had One Villain For A Good Reason
Plans for Ben Affleck's solo Batman venture have all but vanished into the night. But recently, the Oscar winner has gone into detail about some of his plans for the unmade superhero epic. In particular, he describes what he envisioned for the film's antagonist, Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) — and why it was best to keep him a singular threat.
When asked about his plans with Deathstroke during a Q&A session at Zack Snyder's Full Circle Event, Affleck revealed why he went with a solo villain outing as opposed to a gathering of Dark Knight adversaries. "There were a number of them that I was kind of exploring," the "Argo" star explains. "And, the plans were to make interesting, nuanced, complex characters ... either you do a kind of massive one villain that is so formidable you just can't imagine how your protagonist is going to be able to overcome it. Or you have to really sort of populate kind of, you know, Injustice – these big group villains – where you have to get all these different characters."
The "Gone Girl" star adds that honing in on Slade Wilson specifically would have helped amp up the intimidating vision he had for the iconic DC assassin, commenting that he planned " ... to make him seem as impressive as I felt there was the opportunity to do." And if Affleck's vision for the film is anything to go off of, Deathstroke would have certainly been impressive, to put it lightly.
Joe Manganiello was excited for the gritty take on Deathstroke
It's hard not to get a little hyped during the post credits scene of "Justice League" where Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) reveals Batman's secret identity to Slade Wilson. As if not seeing the outcome of this development isn't upsetting enough, Joe Manganiello's description of his character's role in the proposed Ben Affleck Batman film only makes the project sound more promising.
During a 2020 interview with Yahoo, the "Spider-Man" and "True Blood" star shared that Affleck's "The Batman" would have taken inspiration from various sources, with the publication mentioning David Fincher films such as "The Game" to Frank Miller's "Born Again" Daredevil story arc. Lining up with these gritty influences was Deathstroke's position in the story, with Manganiello describing, "It was a really dark story in which Deathstroke was like a shark or a horror movie villain that was dismantling Bruce's life from the inside out. It was this systemic thing: He killed everyone close to Bruce and destroyed his life to try and make him suffer because he felt that Bruce was responsible for something that happened to him."
While fans got some more material with the DC villain in "Zack Snyder's Justice League," it's safe to say that Manganiello and Affleck had more up their sleeves for their planned Batman film. Not only could their ideas have enhanced their own film, but they could have additionally aided in making their story break the mold of recent Batman ventures.
Sometimes less is more
Ben Affleck's ideas surrounding Deathstroke's role in his unmade Batman film could have made for a very refreshing Dark Knight story. In the grander context of Batman's history on the big screen, such a simple setup stands out more than you might think.
For the majority of Batman's live-action theatrical releases, the character has always been accompanied by more than one member of his rogues gallery. This trend began following Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman," which only featured Jack Nicholson's Joker and his band of goons as the antagonists. Its 1992 follow-up "Batman Returns," however, punched up the villain count to three with Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), The Penguin (Danny DeVito), and Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) taking the stage. From then on, each Batman entry from Joel Schumacher's 1997 "Batman Forever" to Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" included at least two opposing forces to Bruce Wayne.
The 2022 Matt Reeves-directed "The Batman" threw out what Affleck intended for the film, with Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), the Penguin (Colin Farrell), the Riddler (Paul Dano), and Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) giving Robert Pattinson's Batman plenty to deal with. While all these films saw varying degrees of success in balancing out such a plethora of baddies, there's much to be admired in Affleck's planned approach that would have allowed for more contained conflict and richer exploration of both sides. Hopefully, future projects such as the upcoming "The Batman — Part II" and "The Brave and the Bold" will take note.