James Gunn revealed that The Suicide Squad's R-rating gives the film one major difference from his Guardians of the Galaxy films in the MCU. The upcoming film, slated for an August release in theaters and on HBO Max, is part-sequel, part-reboot. After the disastrous reception to David Ayer's 2016 film Suicide Squad, DC brought in Gunn to retool the franchise and the director is going bigger and bolder with the new film. From expanding the roster of Task Force X greatly to upping the stakes and scoring an R-rating, nothing is off the table, including plenty of character deaths.
Gunn has already launched one obscure comic book group to global stardom. The Guardians were a relatively unknown group of ragtag cosmic heroes until 2014 when Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and Dave Bautista debuted in Guardians of the Galaxy. That film went on to gross over $770 million, while its sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, grossed $863 million. This sort of popularity isn't surprising when it comes to the Marvel universe and Gunn is looking to launch The Suicide Squad to similar reception, albeit with a different strategy.
During a visit to the set of The Suicide Squad along with other publications, Gunn revealed the difference an R-rating brings to the film as opposed to his Guardians movies. The director says that the rating gives him permission to do just about anything he wants, but that doesn't mean a crazy story. In fact, Gunn says The Suicide Squad has more of a "grounded story," one populated with a cast of complicated super villains as opposed to the goodhearted Guardians. Ultimately, the director says that the ability to kill off a lot of these characters is a major difference that ups the unknown factor, lending a different tone to the film. Check out Gunn's full thoughts below:
It just allows me to do anything we want, but it really is a more grounded story. It's a sad story. And one of the most fun things is I think at the end of the day, even though we do kill Guardians of the Galaxy, we kill some of them, but in this movie you really don't know who's going to get killed. I think with the Guardians, you start out sort of knowing these are guys that may have different problems, but at the end of the day, they're all really good people.
That isn't the case with this, it's a much more complicated story. Some of these characters may end up being good. Some of them are definitely not good. And some of them, most of them, are somewhere in between with different shades of gray and that moral drama, that moral play. The fact that you don't know anything that's going to happen--I don't think most people think that Star-Lord's head is going to explode in the middle of the movie, but any of these characters, their heads could explode in the middle of the movie. So it's that unknown, that being on edge, that really not knowing what's going to happen is much different than the Guardians.
Naturally, there are certain limitations when it comes to making an MCU film, including ensuring that the project has as wide of an audience as possible. While it's safe to say that the DCEU wants the same, when it comes to a film like The Suicide Squad it's hard to disregard the need for a more brutal film. 2016's Suicide Squad was heavily re-edited to make room for more humor, undermining the stakes at the film's center.
The Suicide Squad is clearly going in a different direction and it's ultimately for the better. With Task Force X's massive roster, plenty of deaths are expected. Similarly, the R-rating allows for behavior and language that is more reflective of the attitudes of the characters at the center of The Suicide Squad. Supervillains operate in a different moral area, as Gunn points out, and compared to Guardians of the Galaxy, an R-rating is vital to nailing the right tone for the film and ensuring that audiences are on the edge of their seats the entire time.
