With a total gross approaching $750 million, Suicide Squad proved to be one of the DCEU's
most successful films.
So no matter how few stars critics gave the first one, we know a second one's coming.
Here's all the rumors and spoilers leaked so far about the sequel.
James Gunn was infamously, temporarily booted from the director's chair of the upcoming
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 over controversy regarding years-old tweets.
Marvel's initial loss proved to be Warner Bros.' gain.
In October 2018, news dropped that Gunn was tapped to write the sequel to Suicide Squad.
In January 2019, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that the Marvel Studios exile was
negotiating to direct the villainous squad's next adventure, too.
Gunn is planning a "completely new take" on Task Force X, and it may not be a direct sequel
in strictest sense.
Speaking to JoBlo, Aquaman and Shazam! producer Peter Safran spilled a few details:
"First of all, we don't call it Suicide Squad 2 'cause it's a total reboot...It's everything
you would hope from a James Gunn script."
Gunn's film will be titled The Suicide Squad and will "relaunch" the franchise with a "mostly
all-new cast of characters and actors."
Gunn has a large toybox of characters from which to choose.
The Suicide Squad comic has featured dozens of different DC supervillains and there are
plenty of Squad regulars still waiting to appear on the big screen.
THR said The Suicide Squad will be "rooted in Gunn's vibe," which most likely means we
can expect the same unique blend of action, humor, and drama the director brought to his
two Guardians of the Galaxy films.
"In the beginning, in the script stage, I create it all in my head, and then it's simply
a matter of trying to make the movie look like what's in my head."
No other Guardians of the Galaxy star vocally disagreed with Disney's decision to fire Gunn
as as much as Dave Bautista.
He threatened to break his contract for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 if Disney didn't use
Gunn's script.
It's no surprise that almost as soon as it was announced Gunn would be working on The
Suicide Squad, Bautista was congratulating him on Twitter.
Bautista's tweet inspired a quick response, with fans speculating who the former WWE star
should play.
One of the more common nominations was Bane, the ruthless strongman who famously broke
Batman's back and was first portrayed in live action by Tom Hardy in Christopher Nolan's
The Dark Knight Rises.
While the Bane of the comics was only briefly a member of Suicide Squad, he was a regular
in the comic book Secret Six, which also featured supervillains as protagonists.
According to Collider, Peacemaker, a violent pacifist who believes in peace so much he's
willing to kill to achieve it, is the role Gunn wants for the Guardians of the Galaxy
star.
When Peacemaker first appeared on the comic book stands, it was as part of the now-defunct
Charlton Comics, whose superhero properties were acquired by DC Comics.
He's also one of the Charlton refugees writer Alan Moore wanted to use for Watchmen.
When DC editor Dick Giordano told Moore that DC wanted to save the Charlton characters
for other things, Moore replaced the Charlton superheroes with his own altered versions
of them.
Peacemaker's replacement was The Comedian, whose murder sets off the events of Watchmen.
In January 2019, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed a scheduled release month for the relaunch:
August 2021.
Since Suicide Squad's 2016 release, there have been plenty of questions about whether
there would even be a sequel.
Writing duties have changed hands several times and it was never clear whether David
Ayer would return to the director's chair.
As early as February 2017, rumors were circulating that Mel Gibson was being courted to helm
the sequel.
While Gunn is confirmed as writer, and possibly director, of the follow-up film, it shouldn't
be too surprising that there will ultimately be five years between the first and second
movies.
It may be that the extra time will work in The Suicide Squad's favor.
With Gunn reportedly pursuing a new direction with a largely new cast, the added time may
allow memories of the first movie to fade and pave the way for a fresh start.
In February 2019, Forbes reported that in spite of the character's unquestionable popularity,
Margot Robbie wouldn't be reprising her role as Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad.
In its piece about the state of the DCEU, Forbes wrote that Quinn was being jettisoned
from the Suicide Squad franchise as part of Gunn's "rethinking of the property" and the
"new flavor" he wanted to bring to it.
Robbie's days as Harley Quinn aren't over, though, as she will be appearing in the upcoming
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.
"We're bad guys.
It's what we do."
But that wasn't the end of the story.
The week after publishing the story online, Forbes contributor Mark Hughes posted a correction,
saying that he had been wrong about no home for Harley in the follow-up.
Hughes wrote,
"I have learned from sources close to production that in fact…[Robbie as Harley Quinn] is
indeed expected to appear in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, which is expected to begin
production later this year."
In late February 2019, Variety reported that Will Smith opted to not reprise his role as
Floyd Lawton, a.k.a. Deadshot, the sharpshooter assassin Smith played in the first Suicide
Squad.
Variety says there's no bad blood between Smith and Warner Bros.
Instead, it looks like scheduling is to blame.
"Pleasure doin' business wit' you."
Warner Bros. was hoping Smith would be one of the actors to return.
If Deadshot is missing in action in the new film, it will be somewhat fitting.
In the comics, he's proven to be one of the most consistent presences in the various Task
Force X rosters, but they're much more fluid than other comics super-teams.
A Suicide Squad movie with no Deadshot might be regrettable, but the character isn't as
integral as Chris Evans' Captain America would be to an Avengers movie.
ScreenRant has proposed a promising fix: plucking Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke out of DCEU
limbo to replace Smith.
Or maybe Smith will be replaced with a new Deadshot.
THR reported that MCU veteran Idris Elba was in talks to replace Smith in the part.
According to the story, Elba met with James Gunn in early March 2019 and the discussion
"went so swimmingly" that Elba was ready to dive right into negotiations.
It's an interesting development, particularly considering some of the less-than-glowing
comments that surfaced from Elba while playing the Asgardian gatekeeper Heimdall in Marvel
Studios' films.
Elba played Heimdall for all three Thor films, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and finally Avengers:
Infinity War, when his character met his end at the gauntlet-wearing hand of Thanos.
Elba raised a few eyebrows when he expressed frustration with working on Marvel movies
in a 2014 interview with the Telegraph.
If Elba's willing to jump back into the world of superheroes so soon after Thanos liberated
him from the role of Heimdall, then that chat with Gunn really must have gone "swimmingly."
In the same story that announced Idris Elba was gunning for the role of Deadshot, THR
also cited sources telling them Joel Kinnaman would not be reprising his role as Task Force
X watchdog Rick Flag.
The story said that while most of the cast of 2016's Suicide Squad would be set aside
for newer blood, there were three characters in particular that were expected to return:
Deadshot, Harley Quinn and Flag.
But sources conflict.
Some say Kinnaman is expected to return, and others expect the character will be cut from
the team.
"When the shootin' starts, and it will, you'll cut and run."
What would be interesting is if Rick Flag does appear in the sequel and Kinnaman steps
down from the role, forcing filmmakers to recast the part.
With Deadshot recast and potentially Flag, eventually we might just be able to call the
sequel Suicide Squad: The Recasting.
The question of just how "soft" a reboot James Gunn's The Suicide Squad will be seems to
get more complicated with every related news story, and it grew a little more complex with
the news of at least one alumnus of 2016's Suicide Squad returning to Task Force X.
Talking to Business Insider in March 2019, Jai Courtney confirmed he would reprise the
role of Captain Boomerang in the upcoming film.
Courtney said he wasn't free to reveal too many details, but added that The Suicide Squad
would be shooting in "a few months' time" and that he was glad to be back in the fold.
He said:
"I'm happy, it's going to be fun.
It will be different, for sure, but it's going to be great."
The news is something of a surprise as the rumblings until now have suggested that while
the studio was hoping for the returns of Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Viola Davis to their
roles, the rest of the cast would likely be replaced.
Collider has reportedly gotten word of who some of Task Force X's other members would
be.
One shouldn't come as much of a surprise to fans of the Suicide Squad comic.
King Shark, the savage man-shark hybrid, was one of the characters predicted, and the choice
makes sense.
When DC rebooted its entire superhero comic book universe in 2011 with "The New 52," King
Shark became one of the Squad's first members.
Likewise, he accompanied the Squad and Batman in the 2014 animated film Batman: Assault
on Arkham.
The character also appeared prominently on CW's The Flash in the episode "King Shark
vs. Gorilla Grodd."
If Collider's report is true, some of the other characters prove Gunn isn't exactly
pulling from DC's A-list of bad guys.
The site says Suicide Squad's roster will include two Batman villains who fall squarely
in the D-list: a female version of the Ratcatcher, a former exterminator who commits crimes with
an army of rats she controls, and the Polka-Dot Man, who can turn the polka dots on his costume
into gadgets.
The beginning of 2019 was a good time for writer/director James Gunn.
In Mid-March, Deadline broke possibly the best news of the year thus far: Disney had
rehired him as the director for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
While most MCU fans were likely over the moon at hearing the news, fans of DC Comics adaptations
might have been a little concerned.
After all, if Gunn was back on Guardians, did that mean he'd drop The Suicide Squad
like a bad habit and run back home?
According to Aquaman and Shazam! producer Peter Safran, the answer to that is a definitive
no.
Speaking to JoBlo, Safran said,
"It was all handled incredibly elegantly and everybody knows on both sides that Suicide
Squad is the priority today."
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Safran said, will be Gunn's next film after The Suicide
Squad.
That means, according to ScreenRant, Guardians fans will have to wait until 2023 at the earliest
for the next entry in the series.
"This is no respectable establishment.
What do you expect us to do while we wait?"
According to Production Weekly, The Suicide Squad will be under the working title El Dorado
once it enters production.
There's no indication exactly why El Dorado was chosen, or if it's at all relevant to
the film's story.
The name is usually associated with a legendary city in South America whose very structures
and roads were said to be made of solid gold.
The city has been the subject of numerous films, and it's a popular subject in music
as well.
Everyone from the '80s punk band Agent Orange to metal gods Iron Maiden and alt-rockers
Death Cab for Cutie has recorded an "El Dorado" song.
Shakira named her 2017 album El Dorado.
Of course, as a working title, El Dorado doesn't necessarily need to have any connection whatsoever
with the film's story, though it'd be pretty great if it means Gunn plans to make The Suicide
Squad an animated musical.
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