James Gunn on why he didn’t bring Jared Leto’s Joker back for ‘The Suicide Squad’

A great comic book movie requires a lot of elements to fall into place. You need a great special effects team, at least one compelling hero or antihero to rally behind for two hours, and a snappy script peppered with engaging action.

With James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” arriving in theaters and HBO Max this weekend, there’s going to be a lot of talk about the new villains (or anti-heroes, if you prefer) that show up in the DC superhero film. And while you should really be excited for Idris Elba’s Bloodsport and David Dastmalchian’s scene-stealing Polka-Dot Man, many fans will have a keen eye on John Cena’s Peacemaker, as that character is already lined up for his own HBO Max series.

Over the weekend, The Times posted an article about the career of Matt Damon and how the idea of a “leading man” taking over the box office is dead. People love Matt Damon (well, until he offered up his story about using a gay slur…) and it’s true about how the box office isn’t nearly as reliant on a strong leading man.

James Gunn knows how to keep a good thing going. After breaking out with, the writer-director-fanboy auteur was brought up from the indies for Marvel's and its sequel,.

The Suicide Squad‘s James Gunn has opened up about how he uses music in his films.The filmmaker, whose Marvel film Guardians Of The Galaxy featured a soundtrack of iconic 1970s hits, spoke to NME on the matter of music.“I write all of the songs into the screenplay, and then those songs we play on set as we do the scenes,” the filmmaker revealed.“So when you see them walk through the rain to Pixies‘ ‘Hey’, we have Pixies’ ‘Hey’ blasting on set.”He continued: “Not only do I have the songs that I

It has been a tumultuous day in the superhero and sci-fi space: We’ve seen a Black Widow lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson, a Doctor Who shake-up and the UK premiere last night of Warner Bros.’ The Suicide Squad, all of which we talk about on this week’s podcast. We also have producer Peter Safran on how he worked with James Gunn to bring his zany Dirty Dozen-inspired vision for The Suicide Squad to life.

Ethan Shanfeld On Thursday, David Ayer posted an emotional letter on Twitter that praises James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” and revealed information about his director’s cut of the polarizing 2016 film “Suicide Squad.”“I put my life into Suicide Squad. I made something amazing – My cut is intricate and emotional journey with some ‘bad people’ who are shit on and discarded (a theme that resonates in my soul),” Ayer wrote.

told Fox News, echoing his previous message of dismissing cancel culture.The Marvel film director was famously fired from Disney back in July 2018 before being rehired to continue directing the blockbuster franchise.In the Fox interview, Gunn shared that the sequel to the 2016 David Ayer-directed “The Suicide Squad” brings together the “worst of the worst” anti-heroes in the DC Comics Universe and reverses the script on their negative perceptions.“I think these are all people that feel like they

The Suicide Squad‘s director James Gunn has revealed new details about the film’s upcoming spin-off series.The film isn’t due for release until tomorrow (July 30), yet the new show, which follows John Cena’s character Peacemaker, has already wrapped.

Could a scoundrel DC Comics character like Peacemaker ever be on the same level as Superman? How about Polka-Dot Man? Or Ratcatcher?The man who made Rocket Racoon, Groot and Star-Lord household names thinks so. James Gunn can’t help it: He loves an outsider.

James Gunn was fired from Disney several years ago before he was rehired to continue directing the Marvel franchise. In July 2018, the director was cut from "Guardians of the Galaxy" after inappropriate, yearsold tweets resurfaced that showed Gunn joking about rape, child molestation and more.

Ethan Shanfeld Five years after David Ayers’ “Suicide Squad” was met with lackluster reviews, “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn took another stab at the DC Comics story, using several of the same characters and lots of new faces in what’s not quite a reboot and not quite a sequel.While the film doesn’t hit theaters until Aug.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“The Suicide Squad” is cunningly scuzzy, disreputable fun. It’s being advertised as a movie “from the horrifyingly beautiful mind of James Gunn,” and as much as I love “Guardians of the Galaxy” and enjoyed most of its sequel, I can’t say that I ever thought of James Gunn as having a horrifyingly beautiful mind.

How do you make a superhero film for a multi-billion-dollar corporation feel like a personal endeavor? (please refrain from laughing at least until the very end) For filmmaker James Gunn that’s leaning into the two, sometimes contradictory elements of your personality, excavating the tension from that juxtaposition and letting it all bleed into your story.

Marvel and DC to make a potential crossover film.The Suicide Squad director recently opened up about a potential crossover which would involve Harley Quinn from DC and Groot from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.“I’ve actually talked about that to the heads of both Marvel and DC, but, you know, it’s like, they — you know, everybody’s open to everything, but whether anything would ever happen, who knows?” Gunn told Collider.“But the idea of being able to bring Marvel and DC together in a movie

With the release of “The Suicide Squad” on the horizon, James Gunn looks to be batting successfully for both of comic books’ ‘Big Two,’ having made two “Guardians of the Galaxy” films (with an upcoming third) for Marvel Studios, and now a sequel to Warner Bros and DC Comics’ “Suicide Squad,” which seemed to take cues from Gunn’s sci-fi megahit.

is a superhero movie cranked to 10, with explosions and the storming of beaches, shootouts in the jungle, a giant mind-controlling starfish and… a wedding? That's the hope of Juan Diego Botto's character, at least, as the actor reveals in this exclusive look behind the scenes at DC's new Task Force X team-up. The bride-to-be? None other than Harley Quinn.«He lives in a country where everything is very old-fashioned, and people want a president that's married.

From fan to costar! Before Margot Robbie and John Cena teamed up in The Suicide Squad, they had a surprising history together.

The post shows a pic from the film of the trio sporting guns in front of an overturned, blazing car alongside a painting in Gunn’s house taken from “Able Team,” a series of pulp novels written by various authors under the pen name Dick Stivers. The “A-Team”-esque series followed a group of Vietnam War veterans who worked for an underground anti-terrorist force kept secret by the government…much like the antiheroes of Gunn’s new film.

positively freaking out on Twitter after, calling it “hilariously violent and heartfelt,” an “epic all-out war story,” “weird and wonderful,” and “complete mayhem” with real “emotional stakes.”The screening was followed up with a live Q&A with the director and Gunn addressed being given free rein to play inside the DC sandbox of characters and take chances.“I mean, the amount of film directors or more specifically writer/directors, writers, or directors who have been able to come and play in a