In the wake of Disney’s controversial decision to fire James Gunn from the planned Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Warner is now free to snatch the filmmaker up to work for the MCU’s biggest big screen rivals. Consequently, the news broke today that the acclaimed writer and director will be scripting and possibly even helming the DCEU’s Suicide Squad 2.
Mind you, that ‘2’ at the end of the title could be a little misleading, since we now have word that the upcoming ensemble movie won’t be a sequel at all. Borys Kit from The Hollywood Reporter said via Twitter that instead of a faithful follow-up, Gunn will have the opportunity to essentially restart this series as his own vision:
“Being told that Gunn’s SUICIDE SQUAD will not be a sequel, he will have a whole new take on it. But whether that means a total recasting or not is unclear.”
While Disney may be standing by their decision to drop Gunn, it sounds like the team at Warner have a lot of faith in the guy, and honestly, the Guardians of the Galaxy helmsman could totally make this work. Gunn has already managed to turn one lesser-known comic book property about a ragtag team into a commercial and critical success, so surely it’s not a stretch to suggest he could pull this off a second time. At moments, the first Suicide Squad even came across as an attempt to create the DCEU’s answer to Guardians, in which case, who better to give this a go?
As for the possibility of total recasting, though we could well be on the verge of seeing the torch passed for much bigger DC players than the members of Suicide Squad, stars like Margot Robbie and Jared Leto seem generally happy to have futures in the franchise, so time will have to tell on this idea.
In any case, it could be a long wait before Suicide Squad 2 finally makes its way to cinemas, but for those of you who weren’t keen on the first film, you may now have a reason to be optimistic.
