years after Suicide Squad courted mixed reviews, director James Gunn assembles his perfect idea of his vision of The Suicide Squad

Could a scoundrel DC Comics character like Peacemaker ever be on the same level as Superman? How about Polka-Dot Man? Or Ratcatcher?

The man who made Rocket Racoon, Groot and Star-Lord household names thinks so. James Gunn can’t help it- he loves an outsider. It’s the reason why when offered the chance to make a film with any DC character he wanted, he chose not Superman but the misfits of The Suicide Squad.

Never mind that there was a terribly reviewed Suicide Squad which released just five years ago. Gunn, a lifelong fan of the good-for-nothing super-villains, had his own vision. It would be a mash-up of genres and pay homage to 1960s war capers. He’d dust off some obscure, deep-cut DC super-villains that no casual moviegoer would ever be expected to know and get a giant alien starfish villain named Starro in the mix.

Warner Bros. said yes. And it wouldn’t have to be PG-13 either.

Though bold, it’s not entirely surprising. Not only had Gunn turned the Guardians Of The Galaxy into A-list Avengers, he was also at the time (suddenly and briefly) a free agent. While David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016) might have been a critical disaster, it was still a financial hit. In other words, a second movie, regardless of whether it was a sequel, a reboot or a re-do, was not out of the question.

Yes, it features some of the same actors playing the same characters, like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag, Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller and Jai Courtney’s Boomerang. But as Robbie said, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6, is ‘essentially a different thing,’ even if it does bear the same name.

Otherwise the similarities are few. Gunn’s vision is irreverent, sincere, bombastic, vibrant, unexpectedly emotional and very R-rated. “This movie is not a family film, my dad would take me to see this movie if I was 12 or 13 and I don’t think it would be a big deal. But if you get younger than that, it’s kind of weird,” he said. And already it has one big advantage over Ayer’s- the reviews are stellar.

“The Suicide Squad is something no one’s ready for, but everybody needs. Everyone will leave the theater satisfied,” expressed John Cena. The WWE star plays Peacemaker, a deranged Captain America-type who will proudly ‘kill any man, woman or child’ to maintain the peace. Part of that might have to do with the fact that Gunn, who wrote and directed, had free reign to do whatever he wanted, which included killing off any character he wanted, too.

“James really knew what he wanted to make and from the pitch to the script to the pre-production, it never deviated,” said producer Charles Roven. That involved assembling both, characters and actors that didn’t make immediate sense together.

“It does have this postmodern vibe. Each of these superheroes came from a different genre. Bloodsport is sort of a grim, dark thing and Polka-Dot Man is from some goofy old cartoon and Peacemaker’s from a dumb 70s TV show and Ratcatcher is from almost like a Saw type of film or something. The actors were like that, too. They all have their own styles and different ways of going about it. And it really is my job as a director to tie them all on the same page,” Gunn shared.

He called on some of his mainstays, like Nathan Fillion, who he’s been friends with since Gunn’s debut, Slither, and Michael Rooker, who he clicked with on Guardians. Even Sylvester Stallone (who also features in Guardians) agreed to voice the dim-witted, flesh-eating King Shark. But Gunn didn’t just go with safe choices. He also cast an unknown Portuguese actor in Daniela Melchior for her first American film as an unknown villain- Ratcatcher II. And already she’s being singled out as making a breakthrough.

For Bloodsport, a sharpshooter character that would require not just action know-how but comedic acumen, he enlisted Idris Elba. And it was a welcome departure for the actor. “I was a fan of his work and he was a fan of my potential. He wanted me to play a character that he hadn’t seen me play. I’ve been trying to do some comedy for years and never get a shot. I don’t know what it is about me. I’m really goofy. I dad-joke everyone to death,” Elba stated.

Cena came aboard as Peacemaker, who spars frequently with Bloodsport. Their banter, Cena said, ‘came naturally’.

“He’s extremely witty. He has that kind of a UK flavor and I’m so much more over the top that it really does go together well,” remarked Cena.

Everyone got along famously. It’s part of Gunn’s process to ensure he’s enlisting a group of decent humans. He even called his ex-wife, Jenna Fischer, who’d worked with Elba briefly on The Office to make sure the actor wasn’t a jerk. (Fischer had only lovely things to say about Elba).

“It’s an interesting thing when you have a big group of often big personalities put together to see how that balances out,” Robbie observed. She described their dynamic as ‘a lot of laughing, joking’. She added, “I think that’s why a lot of those scenes feel so real and fun. It was also like that, in between takes and when we weren’t shooting. It was a really, really good group.”

The Suicide Squad was an epic production, too, boasting the biggest sets in Warner Bros. history. Which is a big deal considering this was the studio behind modern epics like Harry Potter and The Dark Knight. They even finished on time and under budget. And, against the backdrop of the pandemic, Gunn squeezed in a Peacemaker spin-off miniseries for HBO Max.

It’s why Gunn has gotten so much freedom from some of the biggest shops in the movie business. He was even rehired on Guardians 3 in short order (for which he’s been working on non-stop on the weekends). He doesn’t mind if there’s some extra pressure now because of the successes. “I love taking actors that people don’t know - people like Daniela Melchior or even Chris Pratt, during Guardians Of The Galaxy, or Pom Klementieff - and putting them on the worldwide stage, getting people to see how great they are. I love taking songs by people like K Flay and Grandson and putting them on a grand stage. I love the idea that everybody has a purpose and everybody has meaning, no matter how insignificant you feel,” Gunn expressed.

“Being able to elevate things that aren’t always propped up by society, being able to put Peacemaker on the same level as Batman and Superman is cool to me,” he concluded with a smile