Aquaman made a bucketload of money late last year, Shazam! looks like it’ll be another superhero sized hit, Warner Bros. has managed to lock down James Gunn to write and direct the reboot to the worst DC movie so far, Suicide Squad, and the reigning sexiest man alive, Idris Elba, will be replacing Will Smith as the character Deadshot in the aforementioned reboot. All in all, things are looking up for the DC movie universe.
However, just as soon as I finished typing out all those aforementioned points, a new twist has decided to drop in on the Idris Elba/Will Smith Deadshot thing.
According to Variety, production on the Suicide Squad reboot, titled The Suicide Squad, is going ahead but rather than have Idris replace Will as Deadshot, he’s going to be playing a completely new character instead.
Yup, we know, right?
It is reported that all parties, including Gunn, wanted to just move on from Deadshot and decided to make do with Idris’ villainous sexiness in other ways. So what character will he be playing exactly?
Well no one but Gunn and DC knows at this point. Maybe he’ll be the James Bond character we’ve been waiting for for years. Perhaps he’ll be a detective-type like Luther or a savvy drug dealer type like Stringer Bell. Or maybe he’ll be the strict boss of the office that the Suicide Squad operates out of.
Look, regardless of who Idris will play, we’re here for it.
There were many – so many – things wrong with Suicide Squad but Will’s Deadshot wasn’t one of them, and it’s probably for the best that they retire the character respectfully than have Idris erase any memory of Will’s work with his smoulder.
This move also leaves room for a potential Deadshot return as Will dropped out of The Suicide Squad due to scheduling conflicts, presumably with stuff related to his weird Genie, rather than any creative differences.
Turning down Deadshot for this? It’s a bold move, Cotton.
We don’t know much else about The Suicide Squad as it’s still in the early days of production right now. All we know so far is that the only people returning from the first film will be Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller.
But with a tentative release date of August 6, 2021, that’s more than enough time to replace Jared Leto and his monstrosity of take on the Joker. I hear Joaquin Phoenix just did something Joker-y and it was pretty damn terrifying so maybe give him a call, James and DC.