Ben Affleck confirms Deathstroke in Batman movie

Ben Affleck has confirmed Deathstroke will be the villain in the forthcoming Batman film, and hinted Mr Freeze could also be involved in the project. The Hollywood actor - who played the Dark Knight in this year's 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' - is to direct the forthcoming standalone project and he has shared a clip of the superhero's latest foe.

He posted a short video on Twitter of the character, who is also known as Slade, walking towards the camera looking menacing. A source has confirmed to The Wrap that Deathstroke will be the main antagonist of the standalone Batman movie, which is as-yet untitled.

Fans have also started speculating that DC Comics supervillain Mr Freeze could make an appearance in the upcoming movie as at the end of Affleck's clip he panned out to a Titan Cool portable air conditioner. One wrote: "Everyone's freaking out about Deathstroke but what about the Mr Freeze reveal at the end? (sic)"

Deathstroke was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and first appeared in DC Comic 'The New Teen Titans' #2 in 1980. The character has a grudge against Green Arrow but his original enemy was the Teen Titans.

He has also gone up against Batman on several occasions in DC Comics following their first duel in 1991's 'City of Assassins' story, in which Deathstroke badly beat up the Dark Knight. Slade/Deathstroke has also appeared on The CW's TV series 'Arrow', and creator Marc Guggenheim recently revealed the character was involved in "another DC project".

When asked why the villain hadn't returned to 'Arrow', he wrote on tumblr: "The character of Slade Wilson is currently tied up in another DC project. Walter is more likely."