After rave reviews from critics and audiences alike, writer and director James Gunn seems to have left his mark on the DC Extended Universe with his recent film The Suicide Squad. The film features an expendable rag-tag group of the DC Universe’s worst villains working covertly for the U.S. government in exchange for time off of their prison sentence. The taglines for the film are literally “Don’t get too attached” and “They’re dying to save the world,” so it should come as no big surprise that many of the massive ensemble cast don’t make it to the film’s end credits. While he managed to tear through quite a few big-name characters in the DC Universe, James Gunn has hinted that he may not be quite finished yet!
It’s been known for some time now that Gunn is already returning to the DCEU with a television series spinoff of The Suicide Squad that follows John Cena’s Peacemaker character. The show, which is unsurprisingly titled Peacemaker, is already nearly through filming and is expected to drop on the HBO max streaming service sometime in 2022. But what comes after that?
DC Film’s President Walter Hamada recently confirmed to THR that there is “more stuff planned” with the director in the larger DCEU, although he was vague as to what those plans might be. During a recent interview with ET, James Gunn implied that he has more in store for the DCEU. Whether that would be a direct sequel to The Suicide Squad, additional spinoff series following other characters from the film, or even another project that is unrelated to The Suicide Squad entirely, remains to be unclear.
Gunn said:
I have all sorts of ideas, and we talk about it all the time. So I don’t feel like I’m done with this villain-verse yet.
Gunn personally selected his team of misfits for The Suicide Squad, a film that is considered to be both a sequel and a reboot of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016) while simultaneously considering itself to be neither of these things. The film is meant to stand on its own, while still bringing in a few of the previously established characters we first met in Ayer’s film along with the general concept of Task Force X itself that was taken from the comics.
Fans were thrilled to see the return of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), while also happy to leave behind much of the rest of the baggage from the previous Suicide Squad film. The returning cast would be joined by newcomers like Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) among others.
When first approached by Warner Bros about taking on a DC Comics project, Gunn claims they handed him an open offer to take on any project he wanted to make for the DCEU. Gunn said:
When they first came to me, it was really about what DC project I wanted to do. The first thing they brought up was Superman, and the second thing they brought up was Suicide Squad. So those were the first two projects, and then I had another project that they never brought up, never thought of, a couple of other ones that we talked about a little bit. People have talked about Krypto [the Superdog], they know that I brought that up at one point.
So there’s different characters that came up that interested me, and I just took some time and started sketching out what the different stories could be with these different characters. It was obvious from the very beginning that Suicide Squad just captured my imagination. It was the most fun. People are like, ‘Why didn’t you do Superman or Justice League?’ I found this to be the most creatively fulfilling story. I know someone’s gonna do a Superman movie again. I don’t know that Polka-Dot Man’s gonna get his story told if I don’t tell it.
Before signing on for The Suicide Squad, Gunn had just been famously fired from his gig at Marvel Studios after directing both Guardians Of The Galaxy films (which he would eventually be rehired for the third film), a franchise that Warner Bros had pretty deliberately tried to match the style and tone of with the first Suicide Squad. Having Gunn take over this potentially huge franchise after the first film misfired with audiences seems like a no-brainer.
The Suicide Squad stars Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, Peter Capaldi, Jai Courtney, Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, Pete Davidson, Flula Borg, Mayling Ng, Steve Agee, Sean Gunn, and Lynne Ashe. The film is currently playing in theaters and is available for streaming on the HBO Max subscription streaming service until September 6, 2021.
Are you happy to hear Gunn has more in store for the DC Extended Universe? Or were you not a fan of his take on The Suicide Squad? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and be sure to stick around Geek Anything for more DCEU updates!
