Whatever your feelings about it, something that was pretty cool about 2016’s Suicide Squad was its crossovers with other parts of the DCEU. Most notably, Ben Affleck’s Batman had a small supporting role during the flashbacks which saw him battling Deadshot, Joker and Harley. The Suicide Squad will be very different, but it’ll still be arriving in cinemas the same year as The Batman, Robert Pattinson’s debut as the Dark Knight. So, could there be a crossover on the cards?
Probably not, according to writer/director James Gunn, but it seems that he and fellow DC filmmaker Matt Reeves have shared information about their respective projects. As part of one of the Q&As he does on his Instagram account, Gunn was asked if there will be crossovers between the villains appearing in both TSS and TB. Gunn admitted that this isn’t something that’s been discussed, but Reeves likely knows which characters he’s working with.
It makes a lot of sense that The Suicide Squad and The Batman won’t directly link up. For all the talk of it as a reboot, TSS is a sequel as certain characters – such as Harley Quinn, Amanda Waller, Captain Boomerang and more – will be back. This puts it in the traditional DCEU continuity in which Affleck is Bruce Wayne. The Batman, meanwhile, is due to take place in a fresh universe, as demonstrated by Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon being incompatible with J.K. Simmons’ version.
From a storytelling perspective, though, you can understand why Reeves would like to know who’s going to be in Gunn’s movie so that they won’t tread on each other’s shoes. And as it happens, the two seem to have picked wildly different characters for their films. Reeves is going with the most iconic DC villains around – Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, etc. Meanwhile, Gunn is playing with D-list supercriminals in The Suicide Squad like Polka-Dot Man, Ratcatcher and Arm-Fall-Off Boy.
