Is James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad Actually A Sequel To David Ayer’s Suicide Squad?

James Gunn has been hard at work finishing off his script for The Suicide Squad which will be his first-ever DC Comics movie. That’s pretty exciting news in itself.

The director of Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 made the headlines after he was sacked from Vol. 3 for some tweets he posted a while back, so he went over to DC Comics to make their follow-up to David Ayer’s very successful 2016 movie, Suicide Squad.

The film was very successful at the box office, managing to rake in an impressive $746.8 million, however, it got panned by the critics and that left a rather nasty taste in DC Comics and Warner Bros.’s mouths, which is why they turned to Gunn to make the ‘so-called’ sequel.

But, could this film be called Suicide Squad 2, or is it pretty much a reboot of the franchise? It turns out that the answer is the latter.

This is not a sequel to Ayer’s movie, but, in fact, a reboot. That said, Gunn is keeping some of the cast of the previous movie.

Read more: Has Nicholas Hoult Been Cast As The Riddler In The Batman Movie?

Gunn recently tweeted a post in which he unveiled a sizeable chunk of the movie’s cast, and there were some brilliant names in there, some returning actors and some interesting ommissions.

The likes of Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney and Joel Kinnaman are all returning to reprise their roles from the previous films.

However, notable absences include Will Smith, who played Deadshot in the first film and kind of was the film’s main character, and Jared Leto, who infamously played the Joker in the first Suicide Squad film.

Leto made the headlines last time around for his, let’s say unusual antics on the set of the first film, doing things such as sending his fellow cast members anal beads, used condoms and suitcases full of spent bullets.

Much was written about it and it doesn’t really sound like a good working environment to be in, therefore, it’s no surprise that Gunn didn’t want him back for this Suicide Squad movie.

In many ways, it looks like Gunn and Warner Bros. are trying to distance themselves from the first film, yet still keep some of the best elements of the movie, such as Robbie, who was excellent at Harley Quinn. Perfect, in fact.

Read more: Could Joaquin Phoenix Be The Second Actor To Win An Oscar For Playing The Joker?

There’s no one out there who could play the character quite as well as she did, and she’s going to get another crack at it in the upcoming Birds of Prey movie, yet things have gone suspiciously quiet on that front.

Meanwhile, among the other cast members mentioned in Gunn’s post were Idris Elba, John Cena, Taika Waititi, Viola Davis, Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and Queen of the South’s Alice Braga. It really does sound like The Suicide Squad will feature one of the best casts ever assembled in Hollywood history.

The Suicide Squad will be in UK cinemas in 2021. Are you looking forward to seeing the film? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook or Instagram pages!

And if you enjoy listening to film podcasts, why not check out Small Screen Radio wherever you get your podcasts!




There are no comments

Add yours

Have your say...