'Justice League' Director Clarifies What Early Deathstroke Footage Was

A little over a year and a half ago, Ben Affleck surprised and slightly confused DC Comics fans, by debuting a short video of the DC Extended Universe's Slade Wilson/Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello). And now, we have additional confirmation about what that video was for.

Justice League director Zack Snyder was recently asked about the footage, and whether or not it was from a deleted scene of the film. As he confirmed, that wasn't exactly the case, as the video was simply test footage for Manganiello in the role.

OTHER: Zack says that Deathstroke video Ben Affleck released was just test footage. from r/DC_Cinematic

This isn't the first time that the context of the Deathstroke footage has been confirmed, with Manganiello himself referring to it as "screen test footage" in January of last year. Still, considering everything that's happened in the months since then - Joss Whedon taking over Justice League's reshoots, the flurry of news around The Batman, and Manganiello's Deathstroke ultimately being in Justice League's post credit scene - it stands to reason that fans would wonder about it.

While Deathstroke's Justice League appearance was pretty short, there still are a handful of opportunities for how we could see him in the DCEU. For one thing, a Deathstroke solo film was announced in October of last year, and it sounds like the project could still end up being in development.

"There are things in the works." Manganiello said earlier this week. "That's all I can say."

For some fans, an update surrounding seeing more of Manganiello's Deathstroke is certainly welcome, considering just how much he cares about playing the role.

"I'm somebody that likes to start preparing way ahead of time." Manganiello revealed during an interview last year. "So I've read almost all the comic books involving him. Just to get the information out of them. Some of them are useful. Some of them are not going to be useful. Because ultimately the script, that's my text. I have to play that."

"I started katana training recently." Manganiello added. "Like live sword training and I started meeting with various martial arts teachers and discussing with them. 'Ok, so what are the most offensive styles of martial arts?' Ones where you're not waiting for someone to attack you, but ones where you're looking to make the attack. Then what are the most deadly ones? Where are the scrolls, the ancient Japanese scrolls that have these really deadly techniques that you don't teach to the average student out the street? Something that only somebody who would go looking for it that are really really bad, you know, are dangerous. Like, what are those?"

Are you excited to see more of Manganiello's Deathstroke? Let us know in the comics below.

You can see Manganiello's official DCEU debut in Justice League, which is currently available on home release.