On paper, a $185 million hybrid of sequel and reboot to the worst-reviewed movie in the history of a multi-billion dollar shared universe that ended up bombing phenomenally hard at the box office doesn’t seem like the sort of project that would serve as the catalyst for turning the entire genre on its head, but The Suicide Squad nonetheless incited industry-wide change.
It’s already become Hollywood folklore that James Gunn was fired by Marvel Studios as the writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which sent him straight into the open arms of Warner Bros., who gave him the choice of any property he wanted to take on. Settling on The Suicide Squad, that parlayed into Peacemaker, which ultimately ended with the filmmaker being named as the co-CEO of DC Studios last year.
It was a turn of developments nobody could have seen coming when Kevin Feige was first forced to give his friend and protege the boot from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it could yet come back to bite the Mouse House squarely on the behind should the new and improved DCU end up closing the gap between Hollywood’s two premiere comic book companies.
With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 currently tearing it up at the box office, streaming subscribers have evidently been emboldened to revisit Gunn’s DC debut on-demand, seeing as FlixPatrol has named The Suicide Squad as the number one most-watched feature among Prime Video viewers in the United Kingdom, while it’s also snagged itself a spot on the global rankings of Netflix, Rakuten, and iTunes to ensure that somebody somewhere is always watching one of Gunn’s comic book stories.
