Joe Manganiello Was Offered Deathstroke Role Because Of Fan Art

Fans erupted in the theater when Joe Manganiello made his Deathstroke debut in Justice League, and it seems we all owe some slick fan art a debt of gratitude in helping to make it happen.

Manganiello brought the skilled assassin to the big screen, but at the recentOz Comic-Con he revealed how and why he got the call to play Deathstroke, and it turns out it was thanks to fan art created by BossLogic.

MIQbonafide gave a transcription from the event. “At the time Geoff Johns and Ben Affleck were writing the Batman script. They wanted to intro Slade at the end of JL…Jon Berg googled Deathstroke, saw Bosslogic’s fanart of Joe as Slade…and he got the offer’

BossLogic was pretty enthused at that revelation and thanked Manganiello for the shout out.

“Crazy this happened at @ozcomiccon today. I had no clue, kind of mind blown.

@joemanganiello thanks for the huge shout and showing some love.”

BossLogic’s art is quite popular for how it blends photorealism and digital effects, and it looks like the crew at Warner Bros. loved what they saw. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten some love from creators in that regard, as his Captain Marvel and Avengers pieces have been celebrated by Avengers: Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who pretty much said his Captain Marvel poster might as well be official.

As for Deathstroke, it isn’t known when he’ll be popping up again in the DC movie universe, but fans definitely want to see him reprise the role. It was originally beleived that he would appear in The Batman solo film, but once Matt Reeves came in they kind of started from scratch on that project, so that fell through. A Deathstroke solo film has also been discussed, but we imagine in some way or another the character will make another appearance.

The easiest thing to do would be to build off of the ending of Justice League, which had Lex Luthor teasing forming a League of his own, which would be the Legion of Doom. Unfortunately, we don’t know if a Justice League sequel is in the cards, at least at the moment, as the first film still had plenty of carryover from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s disappointing bow and didn’t fare well at the box office.

Hopefully, though they can make it work, because few opponents would give them as great a fight as Deathstroke.