When Suicide Squad released in 2016, while it may have gone on to garner over $750 million at the worldwide box office, it failed to win much love from the critics and many fans. But even as the Guardians of the Galaxy writer and director James Gunn is ready to drop his reboot of the film, The Suicide Squad, he finds his predecessor's work a success and even recently defended that Ayer "deserves to be lauded" for it."

Though David Ayer's Suicide Squad was, undoubtedly, a commercial success, it failed to impress the critics who made their displeasure known about how the plot progressed and the way the characters were handled. Given the major bashing it received, Suicide Squad getting the pre-announced sequel seemed like a distant dream. It went through multiple directors after even Ayer gave up hope on the project and dropped it. 

But fast forward to 2018, Warner Bros. gave the project to James Gunn who decided to ditch the entire narrative that Ayer had got going and began working on his sequel/reboot from 2019. 

" "It does not contradict the first movie, I don't think. It might in some small ways... I don't know..."

While Gunn isn't exactly ready to dish many details about his DC debut,  when it comes to defending the 2016 film and David Ayer's direction, he is all praise for it. 

"Listen, David Ayer's gotten trouble for the movie. I know it didn't come out how David wanted it to come out. But he did one really, really great thing, and that is he picked fantastic actors to work with, and he dealt with these actors in building their characters in a really deep and fearless way. It's something David definitely deserves to be lauded for, and it's definitely added to this movie."

Gunn's appreciation for the cast David Ayer assembled is not unfounded as even with a Rotten Tomatometer rating of a mere 26%, most of the reviews for Suicide Squad do appreciate the talented actors and how they try to save the muddled plot. And apparently, Gunn sticks to his opinion as even though he is not entirely following the story and elements the first film sets up, he has retained a major section of its impressive cast.

The Suicide Squad will see Viola Davis' return as Amanda Walker heading the deadly squad while Margot Robbie is reprising her role of the crazed criminal and former psychiatrist Harley Quinn. It also has Joel Kinnamon returning as Rick Flag, the heroic leader who led the original squad and will continue in his position in the new squad as well with Jai Courtney once again joining in as Captain Boomerang. 

Apart from them, Gunn's retake on the antihero team also stars Michael Rooker as Savant, Flula Borg as Javelin, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, Alice Braga as Solsoria, Steve Agee as King Shark, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Mayling NG as Mongal, Peter Capaldi as The Thinker, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Sean Gunn as Weasel, John Cena as Peacemaker, Taika Waititi and Storm Reid. Looking at Gunn's wonder treatment to the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy films, it's safe to say that the new squad with its old and fresh batch of supervillains will be serving mayhem in some delightful ways. This news comes to us via Empire.