James Gunn's The Suicide Squad is scheduled to arrive in August 2021, and the writer-director is warning fans to not get too attached to the characters. In an interview with Empire, Gunn explained more about his quasi-sequel/reboot to the critically maligned 2016 film and hinted that there's no such thing as "plot armor" this time around.
"In The Suicide Squad, some of the characters end up being good, some end up being terrible. They don’t just get in fights and say they’re going to kill each other, they actually do get in fights and kill each other," Gunn explained. "You really don’t know who’s going to live and who’s going to die. I was given full freedom to kill anyone—and I mean anyone—by DC."
As if that wasn't enough to keep fans on their toes, he also responded to a tweet after he asked what two characters fans think are most likely to survive. "Harley Quinn has franchise armor," one fan responded, while also suggesting DC wouldn't be too happy about other certain characters dying in the film.
"No character was protected by DC," Gunn replied. "They gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted. That was one of the things we agreed to before I came to work for them. I wasn’t looking for shock value but I wanted the audience to know anything could happen."
Of course, with a name like Suicide Squad, it's unclear why fans would believe their favorites might be safe, especially with Gunn at the helm. Prior to his work on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, he dabbled in the world of violence-heavy horror with his script for the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake and his 2006 directorial debut Slither. Anyone familiar with Gunn should know by now that anyone is fair game.
Last month, however, it was announced that HBO Max had ordered a TV show spinoff focused on John Cena's character from the film, Peacemaker. Gunn is set to write all of the first season's episodes, and will also be directing some of them. While it'd be fair to assume Peacemaker might be safe in The Suicide Squad, it's also just as likely that the show will take place before the events of the movie.
The Suicide Squad is expected to hit theaters Aug. 6, 2021.
