DC Studios has yet to cast a Batman; they only have a title in “Batman: Brave And The Bold,” but it’s already plotting a team-up film featuring Caped Crusader villains. Several trades report that DC’s co-exec leads James Gunn and Peter Safran are quietly plotting a movie that would pair Batman antagonists Bane and Deathstroke, and Matthew Orton, the screenwriter behind “Captain America: Brave New World” is penning the script. Bane was famously the villain in Christoper Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” played by Tom Hardy. Deathstroke has never really been on the big screen, minus a quick post-credit scene at the end of “Justice League” that starred Joe Manganiello as the assassin supervillain, but was left dangling when Gunn and Safran dismantled the former DCU.
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As demonstrated in Nolan’s aforementioned “TDKR,” Bane is an international criminal with brute strength created by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan. This beast of a bad guy is famous for mentally and physically breaking Batman when he snapped Batman’s back (something Nolan also used in his adaptation).
Deathstroke was created by ‘80s comic superstars Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, a former U.S. Army operative who gains enhanced physical and mental abilities from an experimental super-soldier serum and becomes a ruthless mercenary. He was first introduced in their “The New Teen Titans” series and became one of their most lethal foes (and two of his children, Rose and Jericho, would eventually join the Titans).
Comically, if the character sounds somewhat familiar, many fans have accused Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld of ripping off Deathstroke with a similar-looking, similarly-costumed, and abilities-like character, something that was poked fun of in the 2018 animated film, “Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.”
Clearly, neither of the previous actors will play these characters in Gunn’s new reformed DC. While Manganiello was once set to star in his own solo “Deathstroke” movie from “The Raid” director Gareth Evans, the actor told media earlier this year that he met with Gunn about potentially continuing on with the role, but that the Studio exec told him to just “let it go.”
No director is attached right now, and that’s likely cause Orton is still in the writing/development stage, but Gunn and Safran liked his pitch.
Where this will all go is unclear, but DC has had success with supervillains on screen like “Joker” and “The Penguin,” but also had stumbles (both “Suicide Squad” movies and “Birds Of Prey,” all of which underwhelmed at the box office).
Online whispers are already saying this “Bane & Deathstroke” movie will help set up Secret Six—a team of villains who had their own comic featuring the aforementioned villains, plus antagonist characters like Catman, Deadshot, Cheshire, Rag Doll, Scandal Savage, Parademon and more depending on the iteration. Whose to say, but keep tabs on what happens in the future. [THR]
