If it wasn’t for the news that he was the latest forgotten man of the DCEU to be welcomed back into the fold for Zack Snyder’s Justice League reshoots, then the argument could have been made that Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke was the most pointless character in the franchise’s history, having shown up for a post-credits cameo in the theatrical release, only to never be seen again.
Of course, this was a far cry from the original plans that Warner Bros. had in mind when they hired the actor to play Slade Wilson, with the 43 year-old once set to face off against Ben Affleck in The Batman, act as one of the major antagonists of Zack Snyder’s Justice League Part II and headline his own origin story under the direction of The Raid‘s Gareth Evans.
Like many projects in the early years of the DCEU, all three soon disappeared into the ether, but some new fan art from Apex Form imagines Manganiello suiting up as another iconic comic book villain, and you can see how he’d look as Kraven the Hunter in Spider-Man 3 below.
Of course, Manganiello has previous experience with Marvel after playing Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, where he definitely entered the conversation about being the least convincing high school student ever seen in a movie. But could he suit up as the aforementioned antagonist at some point in the future?
Well, with Triple Frontier‘s J.C. Chandor set to direct Kraven the Hunter as part of Sony’s SPUoMC, the studio clearly have major plans for the big game hunter. And at well over six feet and so jacked that he looks like he was carved out of granite, the Magic Mike star certainly possesses the physicality required for the role, making him a solid choice to inhabit one of Spider-Man‘s deadliest foes on the big screen.
