Ahead of The Suicide Squad’s 2021 release, director James Gunn said that he had ideas for a sequel film that would go in a different direction from just assembling a new Suicide Squad team. Calls for a follow-up movie intensified after The Suicide Squad received favorable reviews from critics and performed quite well both at the box office and on HBO Max. So, when does Suicide Squad 2 come out?
When does Suicide Squad 2 come out?
The Suicide Squad 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, as the project has yet to be officially greenlit.
Is The Suicide Squad getting a sequel?
Though it’s unclear whether The Suicide Squad is getting a follow-up movie or not, Gunn confirmed that he has had discussions about it with Warner Bros. Unfortunately for fans, it sounds like it’s something that won’t be happening soon.
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it,” Gunn told The Playlist about the potential The Suicide Squad 2. “But the honest truth is, I just have so many hours in a day to work on stuff. And I had such a fun time working in television that I really think that’s what I’m going to spend the next year of my life doing.”
Gunn is currently working as a director on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is now in post-production. While he doesn’t seem to have any directorial project for the big screen on the way, it looks like his next movie project as a director will be at Warner Bros.
“I’m thinking about what that next movie will be… it could be something completely different than [the world of DC],” shared Gunn, before adding how excited he is about Mike De Luca joining Warner Bros.
“I’ve known him for a long time,” Gunn said of De Luca, who is replacing Toby Emmerich as the head of Warner Bros.’ motion picture studio. “I love Toby, but I’ve also known De Luca. He’s been a friend of mine for many, many years.” De Luca and Pam Addy are taking over Emmerich’s role in the studio.
Since Gunn is seemingly sticking with Warner Bros., at least for his next turn in the director’s chair, there’s a possibility that The Suicide Squad 2 is going to be the next film that he will helm.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do next because it could be a movie outside of [DC], but it could be a DC movie that has to do with these characters,” Gunn teased. “Does that mean it’s the Suicide Squad movie or something else that’s within that world or a little bit different than that? And that I’m not exactly sure.”
The Suicide Squad spinoff series
Though fans have to wait for quite some time before The Suicide Squad 2 gets officially greenlit, they can still enjoy The Suicide Squad universe through the film’s spinoff series Peacemaker. Set after the events of the film, the series further explores the jingoistic killer Christopher Smith / Peacemaker, played by John Cena. Also created by Gunn, the show was renewed for season 2 last February.
In addition to Peacemaker, Gunn is also developing a yet-to-be-titled The Suicide Squad spinoff series centering on Viola Davis’ DCEU role Amanda Waller. The spinoff hasn’t been officially picked up to series yet, but it’s expected to build off Waller’s appearances in Peacemaker, which publicly revealed her work with the Suicide Squad.
Is Suicide Squad 2021 a reboot or sequel?
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad was released in 2021 five years after David Ayer’s movie Suicide Squad opened in theaters in 2016. Despite the two films having similar titles and Gunn’s The Suicide Squad featuring four cast members from Ayer’s film (Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang), Gunn said that his film isn’t a sequel nor a complete reboot of Ayer’s.
While Gunn couldn’t seemingly decide whether The Suicide Squad is a reboot or a sequel, one of the producers of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), Peter Safran, firmly described the movie as a “total reboot” of Ayer’s Suicide Squad.
“First of all, we don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 ‘cause it’s a total reboot, so it’s The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it,” Safran said in an interview with JoBlo back in 2019.
“It’s everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot.”
Why is Deadshot not in Suicide Squad 2?
Will Smith didn’t reprise his role as Deadshot in The Suicide Squad (sometimes called Suicide Squad 2) simply because he didn’t have the time for it. Sources told Variety in 2019 that Smith was not returning for The Suicide Squad due to scheduling conflicts. In 2021, Distractify reported that Smith was filming King Richard, the biographical drama about Richard Williams, the father and coach of famed tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, while The Suicide Squad was in production.
Will Jared Leto’s Joker return?
Jared Leto’s Joker, who debuted in 2016’s Suicide Squad and resurfaced in Zack Snyder’s 2021 movie Justice League, may not return on the big screen anytime soon.
According to The Direct, Leto is under no contractual obligations to play the Joker again and the DCEU doesn’t seem to have any plans of revisiting the role in any of its upcoming movies. With Barry Keoghan portraying the role in Robert Pattinson’s The Batman and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad omitting Joker completely, it looks like it would take some time before Leto gets another chance to portray the character.
When asked by Variety if he would be open to playing Joker in the DCEU again, Leto responded with the classic saying, “Never say never.” But whether or not the actor gets to reprise his Joker role in the future, Leto is already proud to have portrayed the iconic DC villain in two movies. “That role was an opportunity of a lifetime. And I got a chance to do it twice,” said Leto.
About Suicide Squad
David Ayer’s Suicide Squad
![Suicide Squad - Official Trailer 1 [HD]](https://geekspin.co/wp-content/cache/flying-press/CmRih_VtVAs-hqdefault.jpg)
Written and directed by Ayer, Suicide Squad is the third installment in the DCEU. The movie centers on a secret government agency led by Amanda Waller (Davis) who recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions and save the world from a powerful threat in exchange for reduced sentences.
The movie was a commercial success. With a production budget of $175 million, Suicide Squad grossed $746.8 million at the worldwide box office. It, however, was a critical flop. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of just 26% based on 390 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. According to the site’s critical consensus reads, “Suicide Squad boasts a talented cast and a little more humor than previous DCEU efforts, but they aren’t enough to save the disappointing end result from a muddled plot, thinly written characters, and choppy directing.”
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad
Written and directed by Gunn, The Suicide Squad, aka Suicide Squad 2, tells the story of several convicts who join a task force in exchange for lighter sentences. The task force is sent to the South American island nation of Corto Maltese to destroy all traces of the giant alien starfish Starro the Conqueror before it falls into the local government’s control.
Though The Suicide Squad was well received by critics (it holds an approval rating of 90% based on 370 reviews, with an average score of 7.5/10 on Rotten Tomatoes), the movie was a box-office disappointment, only grossing $168 million worldwide against a production budget of $185 million. Its poor box-office performance was attributed to a number of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the film’s availability on HBO Max, and its ambiguous connection to 2016’s Suicide Squad.