This weekend, the superhero movie world was rocked by the jaw-dropping news that Disney had rehired James Gunn to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, following his dismissal from the project last summer. Once we had gotten over our excitement that the threequel was back on, a question started to form: what does this mean for Gunn’s prior commitment to Marvel’s rivals DC for whom he’s set to helm The Suicide Squad?
Well, it seems that the Task Force X sequel won’t be affected by Gunn making amends with Marvel. DC producer Peter Safran spoke with JoBlo ahead of Shazam!‘s release and confirmed that The Suicide Squad is still a “priority” for both the studio and Gunn himself. Only once that production is finished will he return to the House of Ideas and make Guardians 3.
“No, it was all handled incredibly elegantly, and everybody knows on both sides that Suicide Squad is the priority today and he’ll finish that movie and then everybody knows that his next film will be Guardians. It’s the best of all possible both worlds, I think, for fans and for James Gunn himself.”
Gunn was officially hired to helm the sequel to the controversial 2016 movie last October, just three months after Marvel let him go in response to a social media storm over his past offensive tweets. Since then, the filmmaker’s sculpted the project in his own image, resulting in Safran describing it in the same interview with JoBlo as “a total reboot” of this corner of the DCEU.
For instance, Idris Elba is reportedly in talks to replace Will Smith as Deadshot. A new set of super-criminals is also expected to appear, including Killer Frost. In fact, the only connection to David Ayers’ take is expected to be Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who’s said to reprise her fan favorite role as Harley Quinn for the third time, following 2020’s Birds of Prey.
Word has it that The Suicide Squad will film this fall ahead of a 2021 release. That means Guardians Vol. 3 will then likely arrive in either 2022 or 2023. As always, watch this space for more.