While he’s known by many as Deathstroke in the DC Extended Universe, Joe Manganiello actually made his comic book movie debut in a Marvel film nearly two decades ago. Manganiello had a small role in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, playing high school bully and Mary Jane’s boyfriend Flash Thompson. Tony Revolori plays a much different version of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but many fans still remember and appreciate what Manganiello did with his original role.
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Unlike some of the other characters from past Spider-Man movie franchises, Manganiello’s Flash Thompson isn’t expected to pop up in Spider-Man: No Way Home this December. Manganiello may not be interacting with this new generation of Spider-Man, but he certainly has some thoughts on what Kevin Feige, Jon Watts, and Tom Holland have done with the character over the last few years.
“Jon Watts is a former producing partner of mine,” Manganiello told Variety. “In Raimi’s universe, Peter Parker is the only one, he doesn’t live in a world of superheroes. What I really thought was genius about the new Spider-Man films, the burden on the character is different. He’s a kid living in the age of Avengers where there’s Iron Man and Thor and Captain America. He wasn’t the only one. I think that was a really cool take on that.”
Manganiello also talked a bit about his experience making Spider-Man with Raimi and Tobey Maguire. He said that he knew that movie was going to be something special because it was such a departure from the other superhero films at the time.
“We all knew it was the beginning of the dawn of something different. They were spending more money on that film than had ever been spent,” he explained. “They had the greatest producers, the greatest special effects artists. Up until that point, it was Tim Burton’s Batman, it was The Crow, it was Blade, it was X-Men. Everybody is in black leather. They all shot at night and very dark and borderline gothic. So when you see Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, it’s bright! It’s light! It’s a kid in high school. And he was wearing a red and blue suit, not a black leather suit.”
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