Referring to James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad as “a soft reboot” seems to be pretty commonplace these days. Sure, the picture may feature returning favorites such as Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, but we’re constantly getting the impression that a different sort of film awaits. It’s at times like this when I must draw comparisons to Batman Forever, which did follow the Tim Burton-helmed flicks chronologically and retained some familiar supporting actors, yet it re-shot the Dark Knight’s origin and made several other significant changes to him and his surroundings.
Providing great support to this notion are a bounty of images from the set to be captured by Just Jared (follow the link in the Tweet below for the full gallery), which showcase just how comic book-y this movie is getting. Rather than raiding a Hot Topic for costuming purposes, the folks working on this followup actually seem to want to embrace the genre. Remember how we got a Joker sporting tattoos and a grill last time around? I’d rather not.
As you can see, Captain Boomerang is evermore stylish here. Furthermore, evidence supporting reports of Nathan Fillion playing playing Arm-Fall-Off-Boy appear to be true, with other colorful characters orbiting him. I was most surprised to see Mayling Ng as Mongal, a somewhat obscure character who’ll really only be familiar to diehard comic book geeks. But that’s what I’m digging about this: the fact that someone like Mongal will be on the silver screen.
Here's your first look at photos from the set of #TheSuicideSquad, featuring lots of new cast members in costume! https://t.co/Ak6tE0WxnY
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) October 11, 2019
From the look of it, Gunn may very well succeed in making B-list, C-list and, hell, even Z-list characters into household names when all is said and done. If you were to wind the clock back a decade and tell people moviegoers far and wide would know the names of Rocket Raccoon and Groot, they’d probably think you were crazy. It seems like Gunn will soon do the same for DC what he did for Marvel with Guardians of the Galaxy.
Seeing as how cameras haven’t been rolling for very long, I have this gut feeling one of Task Force X’s earlier missions are currently being filmed. In other words, I’m expecting for several of these folks to not make it out alive, before major players like Harley Quinn are called in to pick up the pieces.
We’ll find out for sure though once The Suicide Squad arrives in theaters on August 6th, 2021.