In an exclusive new interview with Empire Magazine, James Gunn takes the opportunity to speak about his newest movie, next year’s DC tent-pole offering ‘The Suicide Squad,’ and the director also chats about his previous work including the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ films and the bumpy road he’s had facing some serious online backlash on his sometimes-insensitive public-posting past.
It’s Empire’s December 2020 issue, and it’s available digitally and on newsstands starting on October 29th. While we here at ScienceFiction.com have long thought that Gunn could “direct the heck out of” several DC properties, he landed on ‘The Suicide Squad,’ first as the writer for the film and shortly afterwards becoming the director as well. As for the 2016 film version of ‘Suicide Squad,’ directed by David Ayer, Gunn had the following to say in his interview:
“Listen, David Ayer’s gotten trouble for the movie. I know it didn’t come out how David wanted it to come out. But he did one really, really great thing, and that is he picked fantastic actors to work with, and he dealt with these actors in building their characters in a really deep and fearless way. It’s something David definitely deserves to be lauded for, and it’s definitely added to this movie.”
And yes, in the interview, Gunn does speak to how the two movies are connected – sort of, as he says of the new film:
“Um, it’s its own thing. It does not contradict the first movie, I don’t think. It might in some small ways… I don’t know…”
The writer/director also apparently gets the opportunity to speak of many other moments in his career, including what the biggest difference may be between members of The Suicide Squad and those of The Guardians of the Galaxy:
“I think you know, from pretty close to the beginning, that all of the Guardians are good – apart from Nebula, who’s the outlier. But in ‘The Suicide Squad,’ some of the characters end up being good, some end up being terrible. They don’t just get in fights and say they’re going to kill each other, they actually do get in fights and kill each other. You really don’t know who’s going to live and who’s going to die. I was given full freedom to kill anyone – and I mean anyone – by DC.”
Gunn will certainly have a sizable list of characters to potentially kill, as the confirmed cast list so far includes Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, Michael Rooker as Savant, Nathan Fillion as T.D.K., Peter Capaldi as The Thinker, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as King Shark, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Steve Agee as King Shark, Storm Reid as Tyla, Sean Gunn as Weasel, Flula Borg as Javelin, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, and Mayling Ng as Mongal.
‘The Suicide Squad’ is currently scheduled to premiere in US theaters on August 6, 2021.
