Ben Affleck’s Batman Villain Plan Would Have Made A Great Movie
Ben Affleck's Batman movie would have involved a "interesting, nuanced, complex" take on Deathstroke.
While plenty of people are looking forward to James Gunn and Peter Safran’s upcoming rein over the DCU, some projects from the DCEU era inevitably are getting left behind. One of these is the planned movie about Ben Affleck’s Batman, which would have seen him bring on Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke as the main villain.
The Direct recently reported on Affleck’s appearance at Zack Synder’s Full Circle Justice League event, where Affleck said, “the plans were to make interesting, nuanced, complex characters, in particular to the character you mentioned (referring to Deathstroke),” adding “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.”
Ben Affleck’s Batman film would have also seen him in the director’s chair, so we could have really seen a complete vision of what his ideas were for his character. His ideas for Deathstroke sound great, and it would have been great to see Batman going toe-to-toe with a ruthless mercenary and master tactician like Deathstroke. Unfortunately, he only made brief appearances in the post-credit sequence of Justice League with a bit of an extended appearance in Zack Synder’s Justice League director’s cut.
Deathstroke has yet to be a major antagonist in any live-action Batman films, though he would definitely be a great villain to introduce in a larger capacity. The mercenary known as Slade Wilson has combat prowess that rivals Batman, and seeing Ben Affleck’s Batman dealing with this kind of physical threat would have made for an entertaining movie. With James Gunn recasting the majority of the DCU, who knows when we might see Deathstroke again or if Joe Manganiello will even portray him?
Fortunately, those who like Ben Affleck’s Batman portrayal will be getting more of the character in the upcoming The Flash film, which is set to hit theaters on June 16. We’ll even get a double dose of Batman since Michael Keaton is also returning to play his version of the Caped Crusader. The Flash is set to be a major reset that will help lead into James Gunn’s new DCU, so it’ll be interesting to see what the film has in store for Affleck’s character.
Along with Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck’s Batman, the film will see Ezra Miller reprising their role as Barry Allen/Flash. The film will also bring back Michael Shannon as General Zod and Antje Traue as Faora-Ul. New characters being introduced include Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, Ron Livingston’s Henry Allen, Maribel Verdu’s Nora Allen, and Kiersey Clemons’ Iris West.
Ben Affleck’s Batman will also return for the James Wan-directed Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is slated for a December 20 release. Jason Momoa will return to reprise the titular role with Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Temuera Morrison, and Nicole Kidman also reprising their roles from the 2018 film. The DCU future for Affleck, and other current DCEU characters, remains up in the air but at least we can see his Batman again in The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom before Superman: Legacy kicks off the new era in 2025.
