The Suicide Squad Is A Sequel To The COMICS, Says James Gunn

During a panel at DC FanDome, The Suicide Squad director James Gunn called his movie a sequel to the comics. After the first Suicide Squad movie failed to fully please fans of the original DC comic, Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind Gunn was brought in to replace director David Ayer for the sequel (Ayer arguably got a raw deal of course, thanks to the studio meddling with his cut).

Gunn’s arrival on the scene was indeed met with a lot of excitement by fans given what he was able to do in capturing the spirit of the Marvel title Guardians. In fact, Gunn immediately began proving his credibility as a true DC fan as well by teasing some pretty obscure characters for The Suicide Squad, including Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man. Of course, Gunn’s movie will also include characters familiar to general audiences from the first Suicide Squad, most notably Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, as well as Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller.

In Saturday’s DC FanDome panel for The Suicide Squad, Gunn said something else that may not matter much to regular moviegoers, but should sit very well with Suicide Squad comics hardcores. Speaking about his inspirations for the movie, Gunn talked about having Suicide Squad comics writer John Ostrander on set and the key thing he told Ostrander during their conversations:

“That is an amazing question, one I’m excited to answer because, I actually had a long talk with John Ostrander about this. Because he came and he visited the set. And I said, ‘I don’t think of this movie so much as an adaptation of your comics, I think of this movie as a sequel to your comics, to your run in the comic books.’ What would John Ostrander be doing with these characters if it was thirty years after he first started? And so I think that it has the spirit and the lifeblood of the Ostrander books.”

The Suicide Squad Is A Sequel To The COMICS, Says James Gunn

Gunn of course pointed out that Ratcatcher and Polka-Dot Man are not actually Suicide Squad characters themselves, but are just DC villains he found interesting and thought had something to offer in the new movie. Indeed, the full list of DC characters set to be included in the movie was finally revealed at FanDome, ending months of heated speculation by fans.

Obviously, it’s important for Gunn to emphasize the influence of the comics on his movie, as the main complaint about the original Suicide Squad (outside of the way it wasted The Joker) was that the movie failed to really capture the tone of the original books. It remains to be seen if Gunn truly follows through on what he seems to be promising by calling The Suicide Squad a “sequel” to Ostrander’s works, but he’s definitely saying what hardcore fans of the Ostrander run want to hear.

Of course, with any big tentpole movie like The Suicide Squad, it’s also important to address the needs of casual moviegoers who are not devotees of the original source material and therefore are not overly concerned about whether the movie truly captures the right spirit. But Gunn has proven, thanks to his Guardians of the Galaxy movies, that he has a genuine feel for what general audiences expect as well as a legitimate concern for making the hardcore fans happy. In many ways, Gunn seems like the perfect director to make The Suicide Squad the huge success DC is hoping it will be.

More: Who Is Suicide Squad 2's Villain? Everything James Gunn Has Teased

Source: DC FanDome