20 facts you might not know about 'The Suıcide Squad'

While it was not critically acclaimed, Suıcide Squad was successful enough, and it had Will Smith. As such, production began on a sequel. Smith was expected to be part of it at the time, and David Ayers was going to return to direct. Additionally, it was Ayers who originally began pushing the idea of an R-rated movie, after the first film was PG-13.

Ayers was itching to get working on something after Bright, and he decided he wanted to direct the Suıcide Squad spinoff Gotham City Sirens instead. That didn’t end up coming to fruition. A few directors were bandied about at the time, and a script was written with Smith and Margot Robbie involved. Jaume Collet-Serra was close to getting the job, but then instead went to direct Jungle Cruise. One strange name that was reportedly approached? Mel Gibson.

Finally, Warner Bros. found their director…Gavin O’Connor. He was brought on to direct and co-write the film. His version evidently featured Black Adam as the villain, as Dwayne Johnson was already signed on with DC to portray that character. Then, O’Connor left to work on the smaller, more-personal The Way Back instead. Reportedly, he was annoyed that it seemed like a lot of his story had been cribbed for Birds of Prey, which was already in production.

In the end, James Gunn would find himself directing The Suıcide Squad. This was significant, because he had arrived in the eyes of many after directing the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel. He was supposed to direct the third, but he was fired by Disney after some conservatives on social media brought up some old tweets of his involving crass, sometimes questionable jokes in a bad-faith attempt to discredit him. It got Gunn the boot from Disney, but he was swiftly hired by Warner Bros. In what is surely a completely coincidental move, the next day Disney decided that, actually, it would be OK for him to direct the third Guardians movie after all.

When Warner Bros. brought Gunn on board, they pushed the idea of him taking on Superman. Gunn was iffy on the idea, so Warner Bros. asked him what he would want to work on. He chose The Suıcide Squad. Ayers, for one, had no hard feelings, calling Gunn “the right man for the job.”

Warner Bros. basically gave Gunn carte blanche for his take on the story, even though they had a Suıcide Squad movie in the books already. The only thing they really asked was for him to try and bring back Robbie as Harley Quinn, given what a breakout star both the actor and the character were. In terms of where it fits in with the original movie, Gunn has said that his film is “its own thing.” It explicitly doesn’t contradict anything from the first movie so they can technically take place in the same universe, but they aren’t really tied together.

With Suıcide Squad being an existing movie, and with this not being “Suıcide Squad 2,” Gunn’s film needed a name. As a joke, he suggested “The Suıcide Squad,” simply adding an article to the title. While his tongue was in his cheek, the executives liked it and decided to make it the official title.

In terms of influence, Gunn went back to the beginning of the Suıcide Squad. He looked to John Ostrander’s original run that debuted the Suıcide Squad as its own title in DC and thought of his movie as something of a sequel to those comics. On top of that, the film was described as a superhero version of the classic war movie The Dirty Dozen. Ostrander actually has a cameo in the film as Dr. Fitzgibbon as well.

Smith was the ostensible star of Suıcide Squad, and Deadshot was originally going to return in this film along with Robbie as Harley. Then, a scheduling conflict changed that. Instead of merely recasting the role, Gunn replaced Deadshot with Bloodsport, who is admittedly a similar character. He wrote the part with Idris Elba in mind, and Elba was flattered enough by that to happily sign on.

Dave Bautista plays Drax in the MCU, and when Gunn got the Suıcide Squad gig, he said he would be glad to have a role. That role could have been Peacemaker. Then, Bautista got busy shooting Army of the Dead. That opened the door for John Cena, who also got his start in pro wrestling before turning to acting.

The original iteration of Harley Quinn was designed based on her association with Leto’s Joker, for better or worse. The Joker of it all likely led to Quinn initially having a tattoo that said “Rotten” on her face. However, both Gunn and Robbie hated this, so it was not included in this movie. Neither was Joker, which was Gunn’s decision, too.

Gunn likes to cast Steve Agee and Sean Gunn in his movies, though the latter has the benefit of being James’ brother. In the movie, Agee plays John Economos, and Gunn has a cameo as Calendar Man. On top of that, though, they were both doing motion-capture work on set. Agee stood in for King Shark, with Sylvester Stallone doing the voice, while Gunn played Weasel.

Apparently roughly 200 actors were considered for the role of Ratcatcher 2, which ultimately went to the largely unknown Melchior. It was an unusual casting process, to be sure. While chemistry tests aren’t uncommon in auditioning, Melchior and those auditioning for Ratcatcher 2 had to do chemistry tests with live rats.

Trained rats were needed for the film, and Ratcatcher 2 has a pet rat named Sebastian that spends a lot of the movie on her shoulder. Two different rats were used to portray Sebastian. One was named Jaws, while the other was named Crisp Ratt. One has to wonder if Crisp had an upper hand, given that Chris Pratt is the star of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

In one scene, Harley Quinn dispatches one of her captors, picks up keys from his body with her bare feet, and then unlocks the handcuffs above her head with her feet. That would be impressive if a stunt person had done it. In reality, Robbie did that stunt herself.

Sure, Starro is a giant starfish from outer space. It’s a pretty out-there villain in a movie based on tertiary villains. Don’t think Starro is just some also-ran from the comics, though. In fact, in Starro’s first comics appearance, Starro faced none other than the debuting Justice League of America.

Gunn likes real sets and practical effects, perhaps owing to his early days in low-budget horror movies. When you have a Warner Bros. budget, though, you can get a little more ambitious. According to Gunn, The Suıcide Squad had the biggest sets ever built for a Warner Bros. project. That includes a set the size of three football fields for the final battle.

Evidently, there were plenty of people hyped for a new take on The Suıcide Squad. That, or they were hyped for a lot of violence and swearing. When the red band trailer was released, 150 million people watched it in the first week. That broke the record for a red band trailer.

The Suıcide Squad came in on time and under budget, but this is a massive blockbuster, so that budget was still $185 million. In ideal times, it presumably would have cleared that without any problems. Of course, it had the misfortune of being released in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, it brought in $167.4 million worldwide. Ah, but we have to consider the streaming as well, since it got a simultaneous release on HBO Max. Based on the companies that do analytics related to streaming, The Suıcide Squad did quite well on that front, better than any other DC movies and falling only behind Mortal Kombat.

This is kind of a spoiler, although at this point not really. A post-credits scene for the movie revealed that Peacemaker didn’t die. This set up a spinoff TV show that has already debuted on HBO Max. John Cena is back as Peacemaker, and Gunn wrote all eight episodes and directed five episodes of the TV show. There has been talk of other spinoffs potentially as well.