Joe Manganiello's brief stint in the DC Extended Universe has been quite frustrating which is a total shame considering original plans called for Deathstroke to become one of the franchise's biggest villains. In fact, it was reported that Warner Bros. and DC Films were developing a Legion of Doom film which would've seen him, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, and potentially Jared Leto's Joker teaming up for the project.
Obviously, it's no longer a secret that plans were halted after the theatrical cut of Justice League failed to meet expectations. However, the tide seemingly turned in the favor of guys like Manganiello earlier this year after Zack Snyder's "true" version of the film received rave reviews from both fans and critics. Unfortunately, WB doesn't seem to have any plans of restoring the SnyderVerse, much to the chagrin of its avid supporters.
Despite all of the uncertainty, Manganiello has been actively campaigning for his potential DCEU return for years but it looks like the star of Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man film has already given up his hopes of ever making a comeback as Slade Wilson. In an interview with Coming Soon, the Flash Thompson actor was asked if he's still down to returning to the franchise in a future project. His discouraging answer was: "No, I let that go a while ago."
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Apart from the shelved Legion of Doom film, Manganiello was reportedly poised to be the main villain of Matt Reeves' The Batman before it was rebooted into an "elseworld" story starring Robert Pattinson. It's a shame that we never truly got to see what the actor could bring to the table besides his brief cameo appearances and it's just one of the many issues that have been plaguing the DCEU. Will we ever see him play Deathstroke again? Probably not.
Meanwhile, Zack Snyder's Justice League is available for streaming on HBO Max.
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