Ben Affleck’s The Batman will deliver a gritty, fresh take on the caped crusader

According to Joe Manganiello, who will portray Deathstroke, the primary villain in the film, Affleck is going to surprise fans with his new take on Batman.

“When I met Ben we sat down and we talked about, you know, the role. We talked about the movie. His take is a fresh take but I think the audience is going to be surprised. Because it’s a road that no one’s really gone down that’s completely integral to, you know, who Batman is,” said Manganiello on the Mark Madden podcast.

The character has gone through many iterations and is pretty well-known by fans and even casual moviegoers. He’s the orphan turned vigilante whose lifelong nemesis is the Joker. None of this is new, but given what we’ve heard so far, Affleck is exploring new branches of the Batman lore and it sounds awesome.

“It’s going to take this franchise in a direction that I think a lot of people are going to be really happy about. It’s going to be gritty and action packed and cerebral and all of those elements that people love about Batman,” continued Manganiello.

These new comments inspire confidence in the project even as rumors swirl around that the script is going through some issues. It seems the DC Extended Universe can’t shake off the dark cloud that seems to be hanging over it, even in projects Zack Snyder isn’t involved with.

Ben Affleck as Batman did some serious ass-kicking in Batman v. Superman and delivered a different Cape Crusader from what we’ve seen in the past. The next movie, issues not withstanding, may be a continuation of that and that sounds good to me.

We’ll reserve judgment of the movie until we see the final product for ourselves, whenever that is. Affleck has had a good track record lately so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Until then, we’ll just have to do with the terrific Lego Batman Movie trailers.