Much as Warner Bros. might not want to admit it, David Ayers’ Suicide Squad is a stunningly bad — though ambitious — narrative flop of a film that it has to take credit for. But it also knows that the Squad branding’s too strong to simply toss away. With James Gunn’s imaginatively-named The Suicide Squad, the studio hopes to win audiences back, and it just might pull that off.
Just from looking at it, it’s obvious that Gunn’s wartime, more on the ground take on the Suicide Squad is meant to have a drastically different energy than Ayers’, who ended up pitching the team against a neigh-immortal witch — despite the fact that the team wasn’t exactly stacked with members with proper powers to deal with magic. At the same time, however, there are a number of characters like Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, and Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag, returning in the new movie, which makes it seem The Suicide Squad’s meant to be a sequel and not quite the standalone film that Gunn and Warner Bros. made it out to be when it was first announced.
[referenced id=”1522841″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/10/james-gunn-reportedly-had-warner-bros-agree-he-could-kill-whichever-the-suicide-squad-characters-he-wanted/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/26/c5g1rel8jkgmqtr3wf0u-300×169.png” title=”James Gunn Reportedly Had Warner Bros. Agree He Could Kill Whichever The Suicide Squad Characters He Wanted” excerpt=”Sometimes, it feels like a storyteller is just hungry for blood. You know, the George R.R. Martin types who revel in the shock and dramatic appeal of letting their characters die. With James Gunn on The Suicide Squad, that might have been more true than you’d think.”]
In a recent interview Empire, Gunn insisted that The Suicide Squad doesn’t exactly clash with its predecessor, as his primary focus was telling the story he wanted to. But he also hedged a bit, admitting that in small ways, it has the potential to touch Suicide Squad to a certain extent, which makes sense because these are all a bunch of the same characters.
“Um, it’s its own thing,” Gunn said. “It does not contradict the first movie, I don’t think. It might in some small ways… I don’t know.”
Gunn also made a point of acknowledging Suicide Squad’s less-than-stellar reputation while giving Ayer credit for putting together at least some of a template, character-wise, to work with, which factors into The Suicide Squad.
“I know [Suicide Squad] didn’t come out how David wanted it to come out,” Gunn said. “But he did one really, really great thing, and that is he picked fantastic actors to work with, and he dealt with these actors in building their characters in a really deep and fearless way. It’s something David definitely deserves to be lauded for, and it’s definitely added to this movie.”
[referenced id=”1522650″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/10/our-latest-look-at-the-suicide-squad-is-a-veritable-tag-yourself-of-dc-misfits/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/24/n6fef4e4e0qta1a8eejx-300×169.png” title=”Our Latest Look at The Suicide Squad Is a Veritable ‘Tag Yourself’ of DC Misfits” excerpt=”It’s Friday, man. I’m just a Weasel looking for my King Shark.”]
In all likelihood, Gunn’s being at least somewhat honest when he suggests that The Suicide Squad isn’t a full-on sequel in the sense that events of the previous film won’t really be addressed, or weigh down on any of the characters who experienced them. But in Gunn’s statement is an interesting look at how Warner Bros. is still trying to figure out how it wants to build out its portfolio of superhero movies, a great undertaking that it’s struggled with to varying degrees in the past.
Though Suicide Squad was one of the DCEU’s less impressive endeavours, Warner Bros. is clearly invested in making Robbie’s Harley Quinn a mainstay of its films, and recasting the character doesn’t seem like something the studio’s particularly interested in. The Suicide Squad seems to be Warner Bros.’ attempt at taking the best bits of a so-so movie from its past and pulling them into its future in order to tell a solid story.
As all this is happening, Warner Bros. is also sinking an ungodly amount of money Zack Snyder’s remake of his Justice League movie, which makes one question just how committed the studio can be to its bold new future, when it can’t seem to let the past go. The Suicide Squad is currently slated for an August 6, 2021 release date but we’ll be keeping an eye on that.