Joe Manganiello is one of the few actors to appear both in Marvel and DC projects. The actor was initially set up to play Deathstroke in the DC Extended Universe before those plans in were dashed with the formation of DC Studios and the new DC Universe. When it comes to Marvel, the actor played Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. If he got his choice, he’d definitely be down to return to the character, especially if it were the Agent Venom iteration.
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“Would I love to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I mean, sure. Of course it’d be fun in the right project. I heard Sam Raimi’s doing Secret Wars, is that right?” Manganiello tells ComicBook.com. “I don’t know, man. I don’t much about [Agent Venom], I’d imagine that’d be over at Sony. It would be very funny to come back that way.”
Will Joe Manganiello return as Deathstroke?
Outside of Thompson, Manganiello has also expressed interest in returning to the DC fold by reprising his Deathstroke role.
“Deathstroke origin as a series on HBO Max,” Manganiello said back in 2021. “Absolutely. I think it’d be such a fun series and people would absolutely love it and there’s not a lot like it out there right now. It would have its own tone and its own place within the universe. I think it would be very fun and tonally very unique.”
Though Deathstroke has appeared in multiple live-action forms, the most popular is the unrealized version played by Joe Manganiello in the closing moments of Justice League. At the time, a post-credits scene was supposed to set up the villain’s antagonistic role in Ben Affleck’s canceled soloย Batmanย flick.
“Once [Affleck’s]ย Batmanย got canceled, I kind of wrote it off and thought, ‘This is over,’” Manganiello toldย Entertainment Tonightย last May about his short-lived turn as Deathstroke. “I had actually shifted gears and started working on the studio on an origin film for Deathstroke thatย also didn’t happen. So for me, I just let it go. And then two weeks beforeย Justice Leagueย came out theatrically [in 2017], I got a call from one of the executives who said, ‘By the way, we’ve retooled the scene and it’s back in at the end to advertise aย Justice League 2.’”
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is currently set to hit theaters on May 1, 2026 while Avengers: Secret Wars will enter cinemas on May 7, 2027.
