Following his bounce back from the Twitter controversy that blew up last summer, James Gunn has two new comic book movies on the way. He’s been able to clean things up enough with Disney to return to the helm of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for Marvel, while he’s also been hired by DC to direct The Suicide Squad, the sequel to 2016’s commercially-successful, but critically-not-so-successful Suicide Squad.
Gunn was always going to put his own stamp on Task Force X and not simply repeat the exact same group of anti-villains from David Ayer’s movie, and sure enough, it’s now been confirmed that the filmmaker has assembled the entire team for his upcoming sequel.
There’s been a lot of talk about The Suicide Squad being a “total reboot,” but that doesn’t actually seem to be the case, as we know that Jai Courtney, Viola Davis and Margot Robbie (most likely) will reprise their roles as Captain Boomerang, Amanda Waller and Harley Quinn, respectively. The roster will still be filled out with new additions, though, including Idris Elba as someone who’s not Deadshot (possibly Bronze Tiger?), David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melichor as Ratcatcher and, last but not least, John Cena in a currently unconfirmed role.
The obscurity of some of these characters shouldn’t come as a disappointment to fans, as Gunn has made his name in the superhero circuit by plucking weird heroes from comic books and making folks care about them on the big screen. If you want to keep up with the production of the sequel, we’d recommend following him on Instagram, too, as he likes to post enigmatic updates on his Story. See: a mysterious storyboard, hints at his comic inspirations and some potentially telling artwork.
The Suicide Squad is scheduled to break out of Belle Reve and into cinemas on August 6th, 2021. And as soon as we get some further updates on what Gunn has planned for us, we’ll be sure to let you know.