Talk about hitting fans with one left hook after another last week. In the span of a few days Marvel gave us the debut of Captain Marvel, a new Avengers: Endgame trailer, and the astonishing news that James Gunn had been rehired to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Damn, son! And while it's definitely worth getting excited that Gunn is back after his firing caused such an uproar with fans, let's not forget that he already has a major superhero movie to tackle first over at the Distinguished Competition.
Gunn is still attached to write and direct The Suicide Squad, and according to DCEU producer Peter Safran it's going to be taking all of his attention for the time being. He tells Joblo...
“No, it was all handled incredibly elegantly and everybody knows on both sides that ‘Suicide Squad’ is the priority today and he’ll finish that movie and then everybody knows that his next film will be ‘Guardians.’ It’s the best of all possible both worlds, I think, for fans and for James Gunn himself."
Recently we heard that Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 1984 isn't being labeled a sequel, with Warner Bros. treating the word with such fear you'd think it might summon Candyman. Safran echoes this in regards to Gunn's film, calling it a total reboot...
“First of all, we don’t call it ‘Suicide Squad 2’ ‘cause it’s a total reboot, so it’s ‘The Suicide Squad’ and I think people should be extremely excited about it. It’s everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot.”
It's a little bit easier to make that claim about The Suicide Squad considering it may feature an all-new cast, including the recasting of Will Smith's Deadshot. Overall, I think it's just semantics. If they exist within the DCEU they are sequels, whether called that or not.
With so much crossover between actors and directors between the DCEU and MCU, the idea of their being some kind of rivalry between the studios is sillier than ever. Safran hopes Gunn directing movies for both companies will be a way to move beyond competition between them...
“And you know what I love about James directing for both Marvel and DC is he has always espoused the view that that which unites comic book and superhero lovers is much greater than that which divides us. Because, there’s always been this Marvel/DC rivalry, which he has said, and I agree, is absurd. There’s room for everybody and certainly that which unites us all is far greater than that which divides us, so hopefully they’ll see that you can be both a Marvel and a DC fan and the world won’t spin off its axis.”
The Suicide Squad opens August 6th 2021. Guardians 3 has yet to gain a date but I wouldn't expect to see it until late 2022 or maybe even 2023.
