The highly-anticipated DC film The Suicide Squad is coming to theatres this summer and Warner Bros. has been busy marketing the hell out of it. In this new behind-the-scenes featurette, members of the cast discuss making the film and give high praise to director James Gunn.
The Suicide Squad featurette shows off lots of behind-the-scenes footage, which includes Gunn directing and having a blast with the cast and crew. It also features main cast members Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, Viola Davis, Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Daniela Melchior, Joel Kinnaman, Flula Borg, and Polka-Dot Man actor David Dastmalchian as they give high praise to Gunn.
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Fillion, who plays T.D.K in The Suicide Squad, describes Gunn as having "Boundless imagination," while Elba, who plays mercenary Bloodsport, describes working with the director as "watching a master at work." Davis, who is one of the few cast members reprising her role from the first Suicide Squad movie, says Gunn is "in his element in this genre." We also get some clips of Gunn talking about his experience on the film, describing it as the "biggest movie I've ever made." He also talks about his desire to use as many practical effects as possible, which is evident from the massive sets, real explosions, and on-location shooting in Panama, which Gunn describes as "brightly colorful, and beautiful." The featurette also notably has Davis adamantly say that "superhero movies should be fun, and should be bonkers."
Known for his dark sense of humor and his prolific social media presence, Gunn began his career with the indie horror/sci-fi movie Slither, which also starred Fillion as well as frequent Gunn collaborator Michal Rooker, who plays Savant in The Suicide Squad. While he is perhaps best known for directing both Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel, (as well as the upcoming third film) Gunn's first foray into the world of the superhero genre was in the 2010 dark-comedy Super, which stars Rain Wilson as an amateur vigilante. Both films helped to define Gunn's signature style of black humor and comedic violence. While some of that translated over to The Guardians movies, Gunn was of course hampered by the considerably PG-13 aesthetic of the MCU. However, it looks like Gunn is back to his R-rated ways with the new Suicide Squad film, which looks to be a bloody good time.
Gunn definitely seems like a perfect fit for The Suicide Squad. While most superhero movies are family-friendly, DC's answer to The Dirty Dozen is more at home with a hard R rating. While the majority of this new Suicide Squad featurette focuses primarily on showcasing Gunn's talents and style, it's also in tune with Warner Bros.'s efforts to market this movie as more "fun" than some of their previous films. Many of the previous DCEU movies have gotten a lot of flack in the past for their extremely dark and serious takes on characters like Superman and Batman. The first Suicide Squad movie, directed by David Ayer, came under a lot of fire for its dreary tone, but also its confusing and nonsensical plot. In fact, many people criticized the first movie as being a poor imitation of Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy, and it seems like Warner Bros heard these complaints and decided to just go to the source and make the movie they were clearly trying to make the first time around.
Ayer has criticized the studio in the past year for how they altered his original Suicide Squad film. It's quite clear from the early marketing of the first film that Ayer was going for a very different kind of movie, but then the studio got scared by the backlash to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and, as Ayer says, the film was “ripped to pieces and turned into Deadpool.” Thankfully, Gunn seems to have been given free rein over the DC property, even saying in the featurette, "I was emboldened by Warner Bros.' faith in me to be able to do whatever we wanted with this movie."
The Suicide Squad will premiere in theatres and on HBO Max on August 6th, 2021.
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