Ben Affleck Opens Up About His Plans For THE BATMAN and Its Focus on Deathstroke

It would have been really interesting to see Ben Affleck get to make his Batman movie. I understand why he didn’t do it, but i think his film would’ve been awesome.

The film would have seen the return of Joe Manganiello as assassin Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke, and the story would have seen Deathstroke systematically destroying Bruce Wayne’s life, his public status as Gotham City’s leading citizen, and his private existence as Batman. It was also previously explained that it would have had a strong David Fincher vibe and even compared it to Fincher’s 1997 film The Game. Manganiello previously described the film, saying:

“It was a really dark story in which Deathstroke was like a shark or a horror movie villain that was dismantling Bruce’s life from the inside out. It was this systemic thing: He killed everyone close to Bruce and destroyed his life to try and make him suffer because he felt that Bruce was responsible for something that happened to him.”

Affleck recently talked about his unmade Batman film during Zack Snyder’s Full Circle Justice League event. He confirms that Deathstroke would have been a major component of his story and the film would have focused on making the characters more “nuanced” and “complex.” He said:

“There were a number of them that I was kind of exploring, and, the plans were to make interesting, nuanced, complex characters, in particular to the character you mentioned. I kind of feel like either you do – I’m just going to get into my own preference here – but either 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. Or you have to really sort of populate kind of, you know, Injustice – these big group villains – where you have to get all these different characters.”

Affleck went on to note that he was trying to focus on Deathstroke and make him “seem as impressive” as he could. He said:

“So I was at the time really trying to hone in and focus on that character and get into depth and detail about it to make him seem as impressive as I felt there was the opportunity to do. That’s the only detail I have for you.”

When previously talking about the script, DC Animation director and artist Jay Oliva said: "The original Affleck script was the best Batman script I’ve ever read. Ben had a kick ass story and I believe that the audience and fans would have loved it."

Via: The Direct