James Gunn to Write and Possibly Direct ‘Suicide Squad’ Sequel Because Bob Iger Is an Idiot

If you watched Suicide Squad, it was incredibly obvious that it wanted to be Guardians of the Galaxy. Warner crammed the movie full of B-list characters unheard of outside of hardcore comic fan circles just like Guardians, gave the film a theme of “the families you make” just like Guardians and even littered the soundtrack with classic hits from decades past. Of course, where the music in Guardians was deliberately chosen by James Gunn and played a role in the story as the “Awesome Mix” Starlord carried around, the only thing he had that connected him to his home and his dead mother, Suicide Squad just kind of threw some Creedence Clearwater Revival into some scenes in post.

Basically, Suicide Squad was a mess of a movie that didn’t know what it wanted to be aside from being Guardians of the Galaxy, but Will Smith and Margot Robbie were pretty good in it. Still, it was a mess and the sequel was almost guaranteed to be equally if not more terrible.

Of course, that was before DC did the first smart thing they’ve ever done for any of their movies and hired James Gunn to write and possibly direct it. 

If I can be a little self-indulgent for a second, here’s what I said when Gunn was fired by Disney.

I would be shocked if Warner Brothers hadn’t already called Gunn and told him he could make any DC movie he wants, they’d be stupid not to.

Turns out that Warner Brothers isn’t stupid, despite the impression you may have come away from Batman v Superman with.

You may also remember that while the entire cast of Guardians of the Galaxy stood by James Gunn, Dave Bautista was particularly vocal about it, saying that he only signed onto the Marvel movies to work with Gunn and he wanted out of his contract but he’d appear in more Marvel movies if they absolutely force him to because he’s under contract. Bautista immediately expressed his interest in working with Gunn on Suicide Squad when he heard the news.

Where do I sign up! James Gunn Boards ‘Suicide Squad 2’ To Write And Possibly Direct – Deadline https://t.co/OwdDbAm1Ks

— Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) October 9, 2018

Deadline also reported that Gunn will have a “new take” on the Suicide Squad and that the film is unlikely to be a direct sequel to the previous one. The Suicide Squad first showed up in comics in 1959, so Gunn will have lots of a material to draw on. There’s also the somewhat related Secret Six comics, which is much closer in tone to both the first movie and Guardians of the Galaxy than the Suicide Squad comics that Gunn can look to for inspiration (and new characters). Whatever he decides to do, however, it seems likely that there’s finally going to be a good DC Comics movie. And all because Bob Iger was too dumb and stubborn to admit that his company made a mistake.