Will 2016's Suicide Squad might've enjoyed a lucrative outing at the box office, but the film was critical disaster, with positive reviews few and far between. Rumors of studio interference and an "Ayer cut" have since emerged, suggesting Suicide Squad's woes ran deeper than its lackluster story and overuse of CGI. With a widely-panned commercial smash on their hands, Warner Bros. wisely decided to green-light a sequel that would essentially reboot the series. Thus, The Suicide Squad came into being.
Directed by James Gunn, The Suicide Squad recruits a select few characters from the original movie, but largely overhauls the cast with a star-studded school of newcomers playing obscure villains from the DC comic books. Among them are John Cena as Peacemaker, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Peter Capaldi as The Thinker and Michael Rooker as Savant. They'll be ing Suicide Squad veterans such as Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney).
The central Suicide Squad premise remains untouched in Gunn's sequel. Amanda Waller coerces a bunch of dangerous DC criminals into carrying out the government's dirty work - missions beneath the "proper" superheroes of the world. Their success will be rewarded with a reduced sentence; every other outcome will result in death. A tempting offer, to be sure. But while The Suicide Squad's plot remains largely hidden for now, evidence suggests the central cast could split into two distinct teams - one semi-heroes, one semi-villains.
Task Force X Could Be Split In Two
When the first images and reports began emerging from The Suicide Squad, fans were taken aback by the curiously inflated numbers of James Gunn's new-look Task Force X. The team was roughly double the size of the 2016 cast. Considering one of Suicide Squad's biggest flaws was underdeveloped characters, Gunn surely wouldn't toss more names into the mix. An obvious explanation soon emerged - The Suicide Squad would focus on two separate teams, rather than following a single iteration of Task Force X, as was the case in David Ayer's movie. But how would this revised set up work in practice?. Would the teams be running different missions concurrently, competing with each other for the same prize, or splitting up on the same mission?
Oven-fresh images finally provide some insight into The Suicide Squad's direction, and strongly the popular two-team theory. In one shot, a group comprising Harley Quinn, Rick Flag, Captain Boomerang, Savant, Mongal, Blackguard, Javelin and Polka-Dot Man and others, seemingly forming their own team with Bloodsport leading the way. While these two groups are shown mingling together in other The Suicide Squad stills, Harley Quinn's costume change places this moment much later in the movie - potentially a final battle meeting of the two teams.
Starro Turns His Victims Into Drones
As for why Amanda Waller finds herself recruiting two Suicide Squads, the sequel's rumored villain may provide an answer. Starro the Conqueror is heavily suspected as the big threat of The Suicide Squad. Originally an enemy of the Justice League in DC comic canon, Starro is a giant alien starfish, and what appears to be one of the villain's uniquely-colored spores can be spotted in The Suicide Squad's official images. Starro fits perfectly with the ridiculous, darkly comic tone of The Suicide Squad, and represents an appropriately out-of-the-box opponent for the film's ragtag band of criminals. With rumors also suggesting that Taika Waititi could provide the voice of Starro, the extra-terrestrial's debut looks even more likely.
One of boomerang instead. The only ones who can fight Starro are disposable types with no superpowers, making Task Force X the only option. Starro's mind control would also for why two separate teams will likely feature in The Suicide Squad...
Task Force X Loses & Fights Idris Elba's Second Team
After discovering Starro and realizing why traditional heroes are no use against the alien invader, Amanda Waller would get the band back together, once again putting Rick Flag in charge of some DC delinquents and sending them into certain doom. But this initial team might succumb to Starro's psychic control and be turned into its human drones. What choice would Waller have but to then assemble another Suicide Squad to take down Starro and investigate the fate of the first team? Led by Peter Capaldi's Thinker, perhaps?), and liberate whichever of the old squad remain alive, concluding with a climactic team-up against Starro featuring Quinn, Bloodsport, and any other lucky survivors, essentially forming a final, third team from the ashes of the previous two.
James Gunn Is Pushing How ANYONE Can Die
The clue is in the title - Task Force X aren't supposed to come back from their missions. In the original 2016 Suicide Squad film, only Slipknot and El Diablo bite the dust, and neither was developed enough for the audience to care. Two meaningless deaths does not a Suicide Squad make. When Gunn announced his expanded ensemble for The Suicide Squad, fans assumed this issue had been addressed. A crowd of lesser-known comic characters makes for perfect cannon fodder, and The Suicide Squad could realistically kill off most of its cast by the final credits. James Gunn himself has been pushing this idea in interviews, asserting that no one is safe in his DCEU debut. Despite Gunn's claims to the contrary, Harley Quinn is obviously protected (Birds of Prey didn't bomb that badly), but every other character is fair game, meaning The Suicide Squad could become a 2-hour comic book bloodbath.
The quickest and easiest way to achieve that isn't necessarily through the standard "Task Force X vs. big villain" premise. Suicide Squad proved so deathless partially because it didn't make narrative sense for the otherworldly Enchantress to be taking out Task Force X when she had bigger priorities. El Diablo and Slipknot are both, therefore, killed of their own accord. By pitting two Suicide Squads against each other, however, the resulting chaos provides the perfect backdrop for a high death toll. From an audience perspective, watching Captain Boomerang get killed by Peacemaker, for example, is far more interesting than Jai Courtney's character being offed by a nameless CGI henchman or an all-powerful deity. The Task Force X vs. Task Force X 2.0 concept makes the level of wanton death James Gunn is promising far more realistic (and hopefully far more effective) in The Suicide Squad.
