Today, after months of speculation, James Gunn finally revealed the official cast list for The Suicide Squad. The line-up features several returning faces from the 2016 effort, notably Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman and Jai Courtney. There are also a couple of Gunn’s regulars, too, like his brother Sean Gunn, Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker. Not to mention some major stars like Idris Elba, John Cena, Taika Waititi and Doctor Who‘s Peter Capaldi.
But apparently, none of them are safe. When revealing the cast list on Twitter, Gunn shared the following ominous caption: “Don’t get too attached.” This tells us that he’ll make the most of the premise of Task Force X in his movie, in that it’s about a group of supercriminals who’ve been deemed expendable enough by the government to handle dangerous situations. And if they don’t die on a mission, they could get killed by the implant in their necks if they go rogue.
There was an element of this in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, but only two of the team ended up perishing – El Diablo sacrificed himself to save the rest and Slipknot was killed off almost immediately. It sounds like Gunn is promising that numerous characters won’t make it to the end of TSS alive, but it’s over to the fans to speculate which of the cast will still be standing by the credits. Surely only Robbie’s Harley Quinn seems safe from the chop.
In any case, with the cast announced, this means production must be nigh, so we’ll likely get more updates and first looks in the coming weeks. With a lot of big names attached and a director who seems to get the source material, The Suicide Squad promises to be one of the most exciting DCEU movies on the slate. Unfortunately, however, we’ve still got to wait until August 2021 to see it.