More ‘Squad,’ more odd in making sort-of sequel

James Gunn had a lot of freedom in making sort-of sequel

When writer and director James Gunn agreed to make “The Suicide Squad,” he required one stipulation.

When writer and director James Gunn agreed to make “The Suicide Squad,” he did so with the understanding that he wasn’t expected to follow closely, or at all, in the footsteps of the 2016 film debut of the DC Comics team of supervillains.

“Frankly, the weirdness of doing a sequel that’s not a sequel was part of the appeal of it,” Gunn says on a recent video call. “Just because it’s so different.

“I think ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’ is a good example,” he says of the first two films in the sci-fi franchise. “They’re both really enjoyable, but ‘Aliens’ was a much, much different movie. And the idea of doing something like that was interesting.”

At first, Gunn says he considered a complete teardown of the 2016 “Suicide Squad,” which starred Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, and Jared Leto as the Joker alongside other villains sent by Viola Davis’s government agent Amanda Waller on a do-or-die — but probably die — mission to save the world.

“At first I thought I was just going to change everybody out,” Gunn says. “And I’m like, ‘No, you know, there’s got to be an Amanda

Waller, and there’s no better Amanda Waller than Viola Davis,’ so how can I change her out?

“I loved Margot as Harley Quinn, but I also love Margot in ‘I, Tonya,’” he says. “She’s really something special.

“So I just kind of told the story that I wanted to while taking the elements that I really liked a lot from the first one.”

Newcomers to “The Suicide Squad,” which opened in theaters and on HBO Max Aug. 6, include Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, and Sylvester

Stallone as King Shark.

It also brings back Joel Kinnaman as Col. Rick Flag, the military officer in charge of the Suicide Squad, though he’s far from the Flag of the first film, Gunn says.

“I think Joel changes the most from the first to the second movie,” he says. “He’s lighter in some ways. In other ways, he’s sort

of heavier. He’s got these things that he’s haunted by, his sort of idealism, his patriotism.

“And he finds out that he’s being taken in.”

A new Flag

Kinnaman, in a separate video call, says he was thrilled to return as Flag in this reimagined Suicide Squad tale.

“It’s not a sequel; it’s not a straight-up reboot, but it sort of lives in its own universe,” he says. “And you know, there’s a lot of things that I loved about the process of making the first film, but there were some things that I just — I never really got loose myself; I felt a little constrained in that character.”

WARNER BROS. PICTURES Writer-director James Gunn works with actor Idris Elba on location for “The Suicide Squad.”