As you may have heard already Idris Elba is currently in talks to replace Will Smith as the new Deadshot in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and while the news only just broke yesterday evening, popular fan artist BossLogic has already offered their impression of how this casting might look.
In case it wasn’t clear enough already, the new artwork really drives home the fact that a Floyd Lawton played by Elba would carry a very different, more hard-edged vibe than the version offered by the Fresh Prince. There’s a reason why Elba played Shere Khan in Disney’s live-action Jungle Book while Smith was cast as the Genie in Aladdin.
Though a deal has yet to be made, yesterday’s THR piece strongly indicated that discussions are moving forward very quickly. According to the outlet’s sources, Elba met with Gunn on Friday, and discussions with Warner Bros. have since begun in earnest, with Elba said to be the studio’s first and only choice for Smith’s replacement.
In fact, from the sound of things, The Suicide Squad as a whole seems to be progressing at a brisk pace these days. According to THR, Warner is thought to be extremely happy with Gunn’s script, meaning that the project is moving promptly into its casting stage, and given how slow progress has been in recent years on fellow DC features like The Batman and Green Lantern Corps, that’s really nothing to be sniffed at.
Nonetheless, we’ve still got a fair amount of waiting ahead of us before The Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 6th, 2021. In the meantime, next on the DCEU agenda is Shazam!, which is set for release on April 5th of this year.