James Gunn is currently hard at work helming The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros., and according to the filmmaker, directing this movie in particular for the studio was his choice. After his firing from Disney which ultimately turned out to be temporary, Gunn had been approached by Warner Bros. to lend his creative talents to a new DC project. In a recent story posted to Gunn's official Instagram account, the filmmaker has since claimed that the choice was his, leaving him to essentially pick any DC-based property he wanted to make a movie about. "I was basically offered whatever I wanted. I most wanted to do Squad," Gunn bluntly states in the post.

Certainly, following up Suicide Squad is a very interesting choice for James Gunn. While profitable, the 2016 movie from director and writer David Ayer received mostly negative reviews, earning a paltry 27% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While Margot Robbie will reprise the role of Harley Quinn in the upcoming Birds of Prey spin-off, it would seem that a straight sequel to Suicide Squad was probably not going to happen without the inclusion of someone like Gunn on the project. Perhaps Gunn saw the potential the titular team of antiheroes had to offer, as his new take on the story will bring back some returning characters while also introducing many new ones.

Set to return from the first DC Comics movie for The Suicide Squad are Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. It will also introduce David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Idris Elba, John Cena, Storm Reid, Flula Borg, Nathan Fillion, Peter Capaldi, Pete Davidson, Alice Braga, Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker, and Taika Waititi in new roles. While the movie is set in the DCEU, Gunn has insisted that it is "not a sequel" to the 2016 version. Although it does include some returning characters, the movie will reportedly focus on a new Suicide Squad story rather than directly following what happened in the prior film.

Gunn's journey to The Suicide Squad began when the filmmaker was fired by Disney as a result of controversial jokes posted to his Twitter account many years prior. He was scooped up by Warner Bros. before long to lend his talents to a DC project, and in the meantime, the folks at Disney began to reconsider their hasty decision. Gunn was later officially brought back into the fold at Disney to develop another Guardians of the Galaxy movie for Marvel, but the project will need to wait for now as he had already committed to The Suicide Squad.

It's interesting to think about how Gunn would have tackled some other DC stories, as it appears almost anything was on the table. Maybe doing a movie about Superman or Batman may have been too simple, as Gunn seems to prefer working with ensemble casts. We'll see how The Suicide Squad turns out when it's released on Aug. 6, 2021. This news comes to us from James Gunn on Instagram.