Even after the appointment of War For the Planet of the Apes helmer Matt Reeves, The Batman solo movie continues to spin its wheels, and it’s unlikely the Caped Crusader’s next outing will enter production anytime before 2018. And really, that’s okay. For a while there, it looked as though Warner Bros.’ standalone pic was ready to come apart at the seams, what with reports claiming that Ben Affleck was ready to vacate the title role altogether – followed by co-star Joe Manganiello.
The latter initially signed on in the role of Deathstroke, the armor-clad mercenary and one of the most iconic villains populating Batman’s rogues gallery. He’s still committed to the part, despite reports to the contrary, but it seems Manganiello has been toiling away on another project: Dungeons & Dragons.
Word comes by way of the latest episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, where Joe Manganiello confirmed that he’s currently in the process of shopping his treatment to various studios, and is purportedly in talks with “all the right parties.” In fact, Manganiello co-wrote the screenplay “with a playwright [he] went to Carnegie Mellon with,” and has even held talks with Wizards of the Coast to discuss the tone and style his adaptation would adopt.
Not to be confused with Warner’s long-in-development D&D movie, here’s what Manganiello had to say about overhauling the tabletop RPG for the silver screen.
Obviously, there’s a spectacle. There’s dragons breathing fire and lightning. But I think what makes a great superhero or fantasy movie is the human aspect. It’s got to be about something. We root for those characters in Game of Thrones. Fellowship of the Ring was about friendship, this undying love for your friends and doing anything for your friends, and that’s something everyone can identify with. I think when a movie is about something human and real emotionally, people are going to want to go see it. Then if you get some dragons breathing fire, and hey, I’m in.
So, there you have it; Joe Manganiello is in advanced talks to get his Dungeons & Dragons movie off the ground. A fantasy-fuelled epic that places story first and spectacle second sounds enticing on paper, but it remains to be seen whether the actor-cum-screenwriter can convince the Powers That Be. Stay tuned for more.