Ben Affleck has been giving interviews to promote The Accountant, which means we get to watch him defend Batman V Superman. The most recent interviews with Associated Press, Collider, and IGN have brought new information about Affleck’s standalone Batman movie, which will pit Batman against Deathstroke, played by Joe Manganiello.
Now we know the official title (for now) and more about which version of Deathstroke we’ll see.
Affleck told Associated Press it’s called The Batman.
“The movie I think is going to be called The Batman. At least that’s what we’re going with right now. I might change it. That’s about all I got right now. We’re working on the script, the script is going well, I’m really excited about it.”
Affleck also spoke to Collider about why they chose Deathstroke as the villain, and he refers to a version of the character which makes the casting of 39-year-old Manganiello fit perfectly:
“I just had an instinctive feeling that [Deathstroke] would match up with [Batman] well. You know, I’m a big admirer of that character as well, especially in the New 52 the way that they did Deathstroke, and I thought that it could work.”
The New 52 version of Deathstroke is a bit older — but still physically-enhanced with experimental serum — and has been forced out of retirement to reclaim his legacy. We can definitely see Manganiello playing the New 52 version, and that’s a good match for Affleck’s “embittered”, “world-weary”,“haunted-by-rage” Batman.
Meanwhile, Affleck reiterated some of the same reasons to IGN, saying they chose Deathstroke as the villain because he “just seems like a great counterpart to Batman. They’re similar in terms of skillsets, they’re similar in terms of tone, and he’s never been utilized in a movie before which is really, really exciting.” He also seems pretty sure the fans like the idea, referring to their reaction to his Deathstroke teaser video by saying, “I think the reaction spoke for itself.”
