Right now, it appears as though the only thing director Matt Reeves has retained from Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns’ scrapped movie, The Batman, is the title itself. Well, there’s that and a certain guy in bat costume who fancies prowling Gotham City’s rooftops.
Even though I’m sure more trivia will make its way online in the years and decades to come, we’re left to piece together the puzzle in the interim. When it comes down to it, all we really knew about the canned flick is that Joe Manganiello was set to play the antagonist, Deathstroke. Having previously appeared as Slade Wilson during a post-credits scene in Justice League, it’d sure be a shame not to see that fella expand on his role in another production because he’s so perfectly cast.
More recently, this topic for discussion resurfaced when industry insiders began reminiscing on how Slade factored into the plot. It’s important that you take this next bit of info with a grain of salt because the person disclosing the details can’t confirm their veracity, but it’s being said that Deathstroke first showed up in Gotham in order to slay low-level gangsters and B-list villains like Firefly and Victor Zsasz. Then, he’d move onto killing A-listers like the Penguin, before finally catching the Dark Knight’s attention when targeting the Joker.
Unconfirmed as that may be, it does align with the whole “Dawn of Vigilantes” vibe we’d heard about. Though Deathstroke would normally get paid to kill so many people, it’s important to note how Hollywood does take certain creative liberties with characters.
If indeed the Penguin would’ve been murdered, that could’ve caused more ruckus than one would think. Considering how Geoff Johns’ Batman: Earth One supposedly had some influence over the screenplay, I’d assume Oswald Cobblepot be the mayor of Gotham City just as he was in the graphic novel. And if someone wearing a two-toned mask skewers a politician, then you’d better believe the Caped Crusader is going to notice.
So, whatever Matt Reeves’ version of The Batman entails, know that it’s set to arrive in theaters on June 25th, 2021.
