James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad has the chance to be DC’s Guardians of the Galaxy. With Gunn at the helm and no obligation to have the light tone of Marvel, we can get the best of both worlds: comic book characters who have fun banter and get into wacky action sequences and ultimately really hit us in the feels, but with a dark tone.
Since Gunn often casts actors he’s worked with before in his movies, we’ll likely be seeing a couple of familiar faces from the Guardians franchise popping up in his sequel/reboot of Suicide Squad. So, here are 5 Guardians Of The Galaxy Actors We Want To See In James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (And 5 We Don’t).
Don’t want to see: Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus appeared in a small, yet pivotal voice role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as one of the members of the original team. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more of that line-up in the MCU’s future. There’s one role from the Suicide Squad comics that she would probably play perfectly and that’s Harley Quinn.
Unfortunately, Margot Robbie is already playing her perfectly. Cyrus would easily be able to match her manic energy and darkly comic edge, but her performance in The Suicide Squad would clash with Robbie’s and it would ultimately be too much of a good thing.
Want to see: Michael Rooker
The whole point of The Suicide Squad is to turn the villains into the heroes. The team was created when the U.S. government decided to let a bunch of supervillains out of Arkham Asylum to fight a battle against an even bigger threat – a common enemy – in exchange for lucrative sentencing deals. Michael Rooker has always done a terrific job of playing the bad guy who is later redeemed.
That was Merle’s arc on The Walking Dead and it was one of the most emotional arcs in the show’s history, while the story of Yondu in Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy movies also perfectly exemplifies this.
Don’t want to see: Benicio del Toro
In serious movies like Traffic and Sicario, Benicio del Toro is a fantastic actor. He’s one of the all-time greats, gravely delivering his lines with the gravity they deserve. However, when he’s put in a big-budget space movie like Guardians of the Galaxy or Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he has a tendency to suck all the fun out of them.
Even all his silly dress-up in the MCU couldn’t make the Collector fit in with the goofy tone of the movies. Those aren’t the kind of movie he belongs in. There have been rumors that he’ll appear in The Suicide Squad, but this would be a mistake.
Want to see: Sean Gunn
It wouldn’t really feel like a James Gunn movie if his brother Sean Gunn wasn’t somewhere in the cast. In the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, he plays Kraglin, the guy who led the mutiny against Yondu and eventually ended up leaving the Ravagers with him and giving Peter Quill a Zune.
In The Suicide Squad, he could play an equally small and supportive role – it doesn’t have to be a major one – because as long as his familiar face is in there and he has something resembling a story arc over the course of the plot, diehard James Gunn fans will be satisfied.
Don’t want to see: Kurt Russell
As great as Kurt Russell is, the sense of nostalgia one of his performances evokes is better suited to the tone of Marvel, where there’s always a semi-wink to the audience in any character moment, than the tone of DC. He was the perfect choice to play Ego, because he was supposed to be an old, grizzled god.
In the ‘80s, then-action cinema icon Kurt Russell would’ve been top of the dream casting list for a Suicide Squad movie. But these days, his talents would be better used for a character like Jonathan Kent than a character like Snake Plissken.
Want to see: Zoe Saldana
There was a dearth of female characters in the first Suicide Squad movie. We had Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, which many fans and critics thought to be the only good thing in the movie, and we had Cara Delevingne’s Enchantress, a villain whose motivations were as unclear as her CGI-ification.
Bringing in Zoe Saldana to play a Gamora-esque badass from the DC Comics universe would be a great way to rectify this, as well as a great way to reteam Saldana with Gunn, since her future in the MCU is unclear and we’ve got a long wait until we find out where she stands.
Don’t want to see: John C. Reilly
On a number of occasions, indie favorite John C. Reilly has been underutilized in big-budget blockbusters. The directors of these movies will have seen Reilly in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie and seen how great he was and try to bring him in front of a mainstream audience in something like Guardians of the Galaxy or Kong: Skull Island and give him a supporting role.
It’s not the best use of Reilly’s talents. Reilly’s time is better spent on absurdist cult comedies like Step Brothers and heartfelt Oscar-baiting screen joys like Stan & Ollie than on a courtesy supporting role in a big-budget blockbuster.
Want to see: Dave Bautista
Out of the entire Guardians cast, Dave Bautista was by far the most outspoken in defense of James Gunn during his hiring/firing/rehiring debacle. Bautista was the only one who went as far as threatening to exit his contract with Marvel and stop appearing in the movies if Gunn wasn’t rehired and he rejoiced the most when he was.
So, firstly, Bautista would clearly relish any opportunity to work with Gunn again. Secondly, he has some animosity towards Marvel. And thirdly, he’s one of the most lovable and charismatic stars working in mainstream Hollywood today, following in the footsteps of Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. DC should grab this star while he’s on the rise and on uneasy terms with their rivals.
Don’t want to see: Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt made the jump from sitcom goofball to Hollywood leading man with the first Guardians movie. He carries those movies, he carries the team, and he owes the stratospheric rise of his career to Marvel. That’s why he can’t appear in The Suicide Squad. It would be too distracting to have one of the MCU’s Chrises in a DCEU movie.
With Gunn’s directorial style and the comic book subject matter, it would be impossible to see him as anyone other than Peter Quill. It would look like Quill stumbled into the wrong movie and the whole thing would crumble.
Want to see: Bradley Cooper
The first Suicide Squad movie had a Hollywood A-lister in the form of Will Smith to carry it. Margot Robbie may have stolen the movie, but Smith gave it validation as a blockbuster. But now that he’s out and Idris Elba’s in, we’re missing our A-lister. Elba is a huge star, but he’s never carried a whole blockbuster before.
Bradley Cooper would be the perfect fit. He can mix the sly comic wit with a more earnest humanity perfectly and he does that in the Guardians movies without even showing his face. Seeing him in The Suicide Squad wouldn’t distract, because we’re not used to seeing him in a comic book movie – we’re just used to hearing his voice with a heavy Brooklyn accent playing a CGI raccoon.
