We loved Idris Elba’s Bloodsport in The Suicide Squad and hope that all the rumours we’re hearing of him returning at some stage are true, but it seems that he almost wasn’t set to appear in the movie but rather another DC villain, one we’ve met in the DCEU before, was to take his place.
HBO Max featurette The Suicide Squad: The Way of the Gunn has footage of Gunn developing the movie with his team and, in the background on the wall you can clearly see Task Force X Team 2 led by Deathstroke rather than Bloodsport.
The image features Deathstroke, AKA Slade Wilson, with Peacemaker, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher II. There’s also an image of Deathstroke on his own beside the team, so he clearly was more than just a passing consideration.
Does this mean that we can add, along with a standalone and the proposed Ben Affleck Batman movie, The Suicide Squad to Joe Manganiello’s list of projects he almost got to return as Deathstroke for? Looks like.
We know that Gunn had considered other villains for the movie including Solomon Grundy and Man-Bat (who we’d kill to see in live-action!), Black Spider and Gunhawk and Gunbunny.
However, we know that Manganiello has previously said that he was potentially up for returning for the Suicide Squad sequel (here), saying: “There were four or five different versions of Suicide Squad 2 that I was put on hold for, for dates, waiting for one actor to free up and we were going to go.”
Heck, there were even rumours that Elba was playing Deathstroke at one point (here), though they didn’t last long.
Gunn previously said: “Every character in The Suicide Squad was chosen for a purpose, great or small, and although I love many of these other characters, they didn’t serve the story quite as well. I am, of course, open to using them in the future.”
In Zack Snyder’s Justice League we saw Manganiello return as Deathstroke and even to have a scene with Ben Affleck’s Batman, but he really still deserves that standalone movie we’ve been promised for years (here).
Would you have preferred Deathstroke over Bloodsport in Suicide Squad? Let me know all your thoughts, nerds and nerdettes.
Source: CBR
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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