What if Ben Affleck's Batman had gone up against Deathstroke in a psychological thriller where the Dark Knight watched his entire life fall apart? That's what actor Joe Manganiello reveals in his new book Bloodlines, lifting the lid on the film Ben Affleck was due to write, direct and star in before the project was scrapped. Set to make Deathstroke the story's big bad, the feature would have put Gotham's vigilante through a particularly grim wringer, with a personal vendetta that struck at his loved ones as much as his superhero career. These juicy details are surfacing just as Ben Affleck is in the middle of a promotional run, having recently opened up to Josh Horowitz on his podcast "Happy Sad Confused". Deathstroke was on a mission to destroy Bruce Wayne's life from the inside — here's the full story.
Deathstroke wanted to destroy Batman from the inside
Joe Manganiello, whom we glimpsed as Deathstroke at the end of Justice League, was due to reprise the character to face off against Batman in the solo film dreamt up by Ben Affleck. In his memoir, the actor explains that the director wanted to deliver a sort of superhero take on The Game, David Fincher's 1997 thriller. The idea was that Deathstroke would methodically dismantle Bruce Wayne's existence, wrongly convinced that Batman was responsible for his son's death. The mercenary's revenge wouldn't have stopped at a physical confrontation, as Deathstroke would also have murdered Commissioner Gordon, taken Alfred Pennyworth hostage and managed to break into the Batcave. The film would additionally have featured a particularly spectacular sequence in which the criminal almost killed Batman and Batgirl, before the two heroes managed to escape aboard an elevated train. This version of Batgirl had never been introduced in the DC universe of the time, but the actor doesn't say who might have played the character.
A film inspired by the Batman: Arkham games
Better still, Ben Affleck also planned to draw heavily on what Rocksteady Studios had done with its Batman Arkham trilogy in terms of staging and ambition. The film was to end with a duel between Batman and Deathstroke in the streets of Gotham, and that scene was to be partly rendered in CGI, taking its visual cues from the game Batman Arkham Asylum. All the more reason to be gutted that the project never happened. Joe Manganiello also recalls being impressed by Ben Affleck's ambitions, as he intended to take on the roles of writer, director, producer and lead actor all at once. He even pointed out to him that the workload looked enormous for a film of that scale, using Mel Gibson's Braveheart as a point of comparison.
It's a sad tale, that of Ben Affleck's Batman, not least because he was going through a very difficult period personally at the time. A divorce, serious problems with alcohol, films being targeted and underperforming — all of it put The Batman in jeopardy, and it was subsequently abandoned. In 2019, the actor also said he hadn't managed to find the right direction for the script. In an interview with the New York Times in 2020, Ben Affleck recounted that someone he had shown his script to told him the film risked dragging him back into a situation that was dangerous for his health. A warning that stuck with him and contributed to his decision not to see the adventure through.
We know how things went from there, though, as Ben Affleck ultimately donned the Batman suit again in Zack Snyder's Justice League in 2021, completing the extended Director's Cut, and then in The Flash in 2023 — but his solo film never got beyond development. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson took on the role in Matt Reeves' The Batman, released in 2022, whose sequel is still awaited. Either way, thanks to Joe Manganiello's revelations, we now get a glimpse of what could have been one of the most personal and darkest versions of Ben Affleck's Batman. All that's left for us to do is weep.
