Joel Kinnaman recently revealed that The Suicide Squad felt like it was heavily R-rated, but that wasn’t an official confirmation by any means, especially when a big budget comic book blockbuster of such scale has to be vetted by the studio. Birds of Prey aimed for a more mature audience and ended up becoming the lowest-grossing installment in the DCEU by a huge margin, so there was every chance that James Gunn’s new spin would end up having some of the more risky language and violence toned down in the editing suite.
However, insider Grace Randolph has now claimed that a new magazine article confirms that The Suicide Squad is going to be an R-rated movie, which is very exciting news. Gunn admitted that he’d been given complete creative freedom by the studio to do whatever he wanted with the characters, something that was never afforded to his predecessor David Ayer, and it sounds as though the soft reboot is going to be a lot edgier and out-there than the heavily compromised first outing for the titular team.
Of course, an R-rating is hardly a guarantee of quality and some people might remain skeptical of The Suicide Squad given how the last one turned out, but the Guardians of the Galaxy series over at Marvel Studios has shown that Gunn is more than capable of delivering team-based superhero movies that hit big with both fans and critics.
The Suicide Squad isn’t set to reach theaters until next summer anyway, meaning that in theory there’s plenty of time for Warner Bros. to change their minds, which may indeed happen if the industry is still struggling to return to normal by then.