THE SUICIDE SQUAD

redemption, although though the mission will be very different second time out.

“We don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 because it’s a total reboot,” producer Peter Safran (Aquaman, Shazam!) says. “It’s The Suicide Squad and people should be extremely excited about it.”

Now armed with that all-important definite article, The Suicide Squad have a new handler, and when it comes to marshalling groups of morally ambiguous super-types, few can rival James Gunn. The Guardians Of The Galaxy writer/director has made the jump from Marvel to DC – he’ll be going back the other way for Guardians 3 and the Holiday Special

– and is making substantial changes to cinema’s baddest supergroup.

While the return of Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and their handlers, Waller (Viola Davis) and Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) blurs the lines between sequel and reboot, the film features a predominantly new line-up.

“The villains I used come from all over DC and from different time periods,” Gunn explains. Many hail from the obscure outer reaches of DC’s extensive comic back catalogue, so don’t be surprised if King Shark, Weasel and Polka-Dot Man are household names to rival Rocket and Groot this time next year.

While big names like Idris Elba (Bloodsport), former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi (The Thinker) and WWE’s John Cena are all on board – Cena’s Peacemaker already has an HBO Max TV spin-off in the works – they’re all expendable in Gunn’s eyes.

“No character was protected by DC,” the director has said. “They gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted. That was one of the things we agreed to before I came to work for them. I wasn’t looking for shock value but I wanted the audience to know anything could happen.”

While plot specifics are still under wraps, we do know the new-look Task Force X will be sent on a mission to the Latin American island of Corto Maltese, to destroy a laboratory called Jotunheim. As Safran explained during the DC Fandome sneak peek, “This is a gritty 1970s war movie combined with the brilliance of James Gunn’s characters and comedy.”

Gunn’s take on The Dirty Dozen has also leant heavily into the original Suicide Squad comics run written by John Ostrander. “I actually had a long talk with [him] about this,” Gunn reveals. “I said, I don’t think of this movie so much as an adaptation of your comics, I think of this movie as a sequel to your run in the comic books. What would John Ostrander be doing with these characters if it was 30 years after he first started?” We can’t wait to find out.