Justice League Star Joe Manganiello Wants to Switch Sides, Reveals Marvel Superhero He Wants to Play in Secret Wars
Joe Manganiello is one of those handful of stars who have appeared in both DC and Marvel. He appeared as Deathstroke in Snyderverse or DCEU, which is a thing of the past now with the formation of the new DC Studios under James Gunn and Peter Safran. He has portrayed Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy before and he recently addressed whether he wants to be back for more in Marvel again.
Joe Manganiello Addresses Potential Marvel Return
Avengers: Secret Wars is the upcoming magnum opus by Marvel after The Infinity Saga. Although no official director has been announced for the project just yet, industry savant Daniel RPK gave an insider scoop last year that Sam Raimi was being talked about to helm the project.
Joe Manganiello, who starred as Flash Thompson, recently spoke to ComicBook.com and expressed his idea to join Raimi if he is indeed the mastermind behind the biggest MCU project in a while. The Magic Mike star seemed ecstatic to go over to Marvel and reprise his role as Agent Venom. Check out the full statement below.
“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? 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.”
Outside of his Marvel return, he also does not want to let go of his role as Deathstroke in DC. He expressed his desire for an HBO series featuring Deathstroke back in 2021 during a virtual JusticeCon Convention.
“Deathstroke origin as a series on HBO Max. 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.”
Although Deathstroke has appeared in many live-action forms, the fan favorite of them is the unrealized version that one sees in the Justice League closing scenes. The post-credit scenes were supposed to set up Deathstroke for Ben Affleck’s solo Batman flick, which later got canceled.
Joe Manganiello Turned Down A Role In Taika Waititi’s Thor
According to Manganiello’s own admission to ComicBook.com, he was actually offered a significant undisclosed role in one of Taika Waititi’s Thor movies. However, he was facing many scheduling issues so he had to pass on the role, a decision he regrets to this day.
“Years ago, Taika Waititi wanted me for one of the Thor movies and I couldn’t do it. It was impossible for me scheduling-wise to do it at the end of the day. But that would have been my reappearance back into the Marvel Universe. But I couldn’t do it.”
While Joe Manganiello did not share which Thor movie he was up for, it was possibly Thor: Ragnarok since he said it was years ago, as opposed to a couple of years ago when Thor: Love and Thunder came out.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is set to be released on May 1, 2026, while Avengers: Secret Wars is slated to enter cinemas on May 7, 2027.
