The Suicide Squad is all set to be released on August 6th, 2021 and after multiple trailers and snapshots, all that is left to see is the movie itself. But in between all that excitement and buzz a question has been going on in the minds of DC and Marvel fans and that is – Is The Suicide Squad going to be similar to James Gunn’s previous Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy?
Marvel Cinematic Universe and Warner Brothers DC Extended Universe are two entertainment giants that have always known what superheroes we want. They have moved the world of entertainment, franchises, and superheroes forward with their healthy rivalry. But now that two of their movies share the same director James Gunn, fans are questioning what is to come next.
Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide squad are going to be multi-starrer movies, with a hugely talented cast on its back. They will almost carry the same premise as well, where a band of misfits and D-list characters would come together to save the day. So what is that makes The Suicide Squad stand apart, lets see what James Gunn himself has to say about it.
“I mean, it’s a much, much, much rougher film than Guardians of the Galaxy. Everything is almost completely practical. The biggest sets I’ve run almost any film, ever more visual,”
“I was able to take all of the heads of departments that I’ve used on other films and just do a best of, and Dan Sudek, who’s doing our special effects, what I was saying this morning, he’s doing more special effects, more live special effects in this film than all of the Marvel movies he’s ever done combined, which is every single Marvel movie that was shot in Atlanta. And so it’s just a much more grounded, you know, darker film. Gorier. It’s gorier.”
He also talks about the difference in the atmosphere of the two films, while the Guardians have always been about space exploration, The Suicide Squad is much more “grounded” in its origin, exploring the misfit combinations on Earth.
“Obviously, you still have a King Shark and a Weasel but it’s so grounded in the real world. It’s so grounded in Earth as opposed to the space operative that Guardians is. So that and the fact that it’s so much grittier that it is R rated, and the way it’s shot, you’ll see, is very different than Guardians,”
Charles Safran, producer of The Suicide Squad adds,
“It’s not as smooth or as slick as Guardians. It’s much dirtier, and grittier, and rougher just in terms of the camera with the same fantastic DP, Henry Braham. But it really brought a completely different language, and I’m sure James will talk about this when you talk to him. It’s a very different language with the movement of the camera that he wanted for this movie. So no, I don’t think it was any question that it was just DC’s version of Guardians. It’s a very different feel.”
It looks like Safran and James are pointing toward the much more dangerous, insane, and violent side of The Suicide Squad. The new Task Force X would not see superheroes or essentially “good people” as its protagonists. The Suicide Squad is all about anti-heroes, villains, and people from the other side of the door, who may or may not survive the end.
James Gunn talks about the same:
“I think with the Guardians, you start out sort of knowing that they may have different problems, but at the end of the day, they’re all really good people,” he says. “That isn’t the case with this [movie]. This is a much more complicated story. Some of these characters may end up being good, some of them are definitely not good, and most of them are somewhere in between different shades of grey.”
James Gunn also approached this movie as a war movie. A war movie in which casualties are very much a possibility.
“It’s just a more grounded story. It’s a sad story. Even though we do kill some [characters] in Guardians of the Galaxy, in this movie, you really don’t know who’s going to get killed.”
One thing is for sure we can expect The Suicide Squad to go beyond the PG-13 parameters of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. According to James Gunn, you can expect “Any of these characters [in The Suicide Squad], their heads could explode in the middle of the movie”.
Even when Screen Rant received an opportunity to go and visit the set of The Suicide Squad they found a very remarkable difference in both the movies. This time James Gunn has taken a more hands-on approach, he has reduced the CGI component of the movie to a certain extent. He believes it offers more freedom and space to the actors, who will be able to explore more acting when they have something to respond to this time.
Beth Mickle, production designer of both The Suicide Squad and The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 offered more light on this thought-
I think on Guardians–when James and I first spoke about this I was actually involved with Guardians 3 initially–the same idea applied for that. I think they didn’t enjoy their experience in Guardians 2 because so much of it was against blue screen and the actors had nothing to react to, and he had no sense in the space of where they were at any given point. You hear that a lot from actors, and unfortunately these giant franchise movies have gone the way of… everything becomes blue screen, all the way down to costumes, become CGI creations. And it does get away from what we all got into the film industry to do, a little bit. You can do amazing things with it now and make incredible worlds you could never do before, but there is a little bit of luster lost by having it all go to visual effects. So James’ mandate was, “We want to do as much in camera, and build as much as we possibly can.
It is sounding like James Gunn has been given a free rein with The Suicide Squad and he has left no stone unturned in making the most of it.
With some great first reactions coming in, it seems like James Gunn’s strategy has worked. The Suicide Squad will hit the theaters and on HBO Max on August 6th. Peacemaker is expected to release on HBO Max in 2022. While Guardians of the Galaxy will start filming later this year and is set to debut in May 2023.
We wait eagerly for all of the upcoming movies, tightly holding on to the edge of our seats!
