James Gunn's 'The Suicide Squad': Release date, plot, cast, and everything else about the upcoming DC film
'The Suicide Squad', now with James Gunn at the helm, is looking to make an impact that the previous installment couldn't. Despite 'Suicide Squad' (2016) grossing a whopping $746 million, the film drew criticism for the plot, direction, editing, and the characters. Along with a bunch of new characters, the 2021 release is inspired by the classic Jon Ostrander's version of the Suicide Squad comics and will, in all probability, be a reboot.
Release Date:
'The Suicide Squad' is slated to release on August 6, 2021. The movie production is set to start in September 2019.
Plot:
There are two possibilities that have so far been discussed. In one version, the titular anti-heroes are assigned a mission to retrieve a 'weapon of mass destruction.' The movie also introduce a new character, Black Adam, most likely to be played by Dwayne Johnson, as reported by Thewrap. For those who don't know much about Black Adam, the supervillain is an Egyptian predecessor of Captain Marvel (from DC Comics!) with metahuman abilities such as super strength, flight, sub-light speeds, survival in outer space and resistance to telekineses.
The other theory suggests that the plot will be loosely based on Gail Simone's comic of The Secret Six — which features some of the anti-heroes from Suicide Squad who team up with a slew of new supervillains. Collider has also reported that the film will see the likes of Polka Dot Man (who has the awkward ability of developing polka dots on his body that can turn into fireballs), King Shark (a savage mutation and is believed to be the son of the Shark God), and Ratcatcher (one of Batman's archenemies who can communicate and control rodents).
Cast:
In what appears to be a bit of a bummer, Will Smith will not be reprising his role as Deadshot, owing to scheduling conflicts. Instead, Idris Elba will find a role in the movie as a new character. This also meant that Smith could return to the franchise at a later stage.
The full cast of the movie, as revealed by Gunn in a Twitter post, includes David Dastmalchian, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, Taika Waititi, Daniela Melchior, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Juan Diego Botto, Alice Braga, Peter Capaldi, Jai Courtney, Mayling Ng, Storm Reid, Steve Agee, Julio Ruiz, Joaquín Cosío, Flula Borg, Pete Davidson, Tinashe Kajese, Jennifer Holland, Viola Davis, Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, and Michael Rooker.
Idris Elba being cast comes as a welcome move but not much is known about his character. Personally, it would be incredible to see Elba play the role of the Bronze Tiger (Michael Jai White portrays the character in CW Television series Arrow). Benjamin Turner aka the Bronze Tiger is a martial arts master and is second-in-command to Rick Flag. Assuming that Flag's character kicks the bucket, it would be Turner who would take over the team in Deadshot's and Flag's absence, the two sane members in the squad.
On the other hand, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, and Viola Davis are set to return as Rick Flag, Captain Boomerang and Amanda Waller respectively.
Director, writer:
While it was announced that David Ayer would return to direct the sequel in 2016, he dropped out and Gavin O' Connor was hired. Connor eventually left the project after his story treatment was found to be reportedly identical to 'Birds of Prey'. James Gunn finally landed the role of director after writing a new script for the sequel and has already hinted that he would bring new characters to the film.
With the production yet to go on floors, there will be more news coming our way. and we'll surely keep you posted.
