Director David Ayer’s ‘Suicide Squad’ differs from traditional comic book movies in several obvious ways.  Its focus isn’t on heroes trying to save the world, but rather some of the nastiest super villains forced into working for the US government.  Arriving on the heels of ‘Batman V Superman’, which really kicks off the DC Cinematic Universe, ‘Suicide Squad’ will offer a glimpse into the seedier side of things.

This month’s ‘Empire’ magazine offered an in depth look at the upcoming movie, complete with alternate covers featuring glossy portraits of its biggest stars, including Jared Leto as The Joker (shown).

Among the insights in the article, Ayer discusses what makes his flick different from existing super hero epics:

“You know, all these movies are about defeating the evil alien robot from f*cking Planet X, before it destroys the world with its ticking clock. And who the f*ck cares?  But you do this story about struggle and isolation and people who have been shit on that suddenly get thrown this lifeline… that’s not so bad… I like to think of this as the Comic Book Movie 2.0”

Well, they’re not ALL about that.  (Just the really popular ones.)  There are many, the ‘Spider-Man’ movies just to name one example, that are much more personal.  Even the recent ‘Ant-Man’ scaled things back.  And movies like ‘The Avengers’ wouldn’t make sense if they WEREN’T about that type of worldwide threat, requiring the mightiest heroes to come together.  And, while we don’t yet know the exact plot of ‘Suicide Squad”s predecessor ‘Batman V Superman’, we have seen glimpses of some sort of massive battle in the trailers and one that doesn’t only involve the two heroes in the title.

And let’s not forget that ‘The Punisher’, ‘Daredevil’, ‘Wolverine’ and many other more grounded characters have had movies… not necessarily good ones, but they’re still comic book movies.

Back to ‘Suicide Squad’, executive producer Charles Roven does reveal that this movie was Ayer’s brainchild.  It was the director that approached Warner Bros. (DC’s parent company) about making this flick, not the other way around.

Also from ‘Empire’, this is what Roven said about the process:

“We’d just started shooting Batman v Superman, we were figuring out our path through the expanding DC Justice League universe.  Then David Ayer came and pitched his take on Suicide Squad. It had this darkness and edge, while still tonally in the zone of what we’re trying to do with these movies. And it’s impossible that you could get a big tentpole picture from pitch to start of principal photography any faster than we did.”

That part is interesting.  WB wasn’t looking to make ‘Suicide Squad’, but once they heard Ayer’s pitch, they pressed forward with haste.  That should– for better or worse– mean that this movie will be the director’s vision and not some by-the-numbers flick with a director simply plugged in to fill the position.

Will ‘Suicide Squad’ revolutionize comic book movies?  Does this raise the stakes on what some saw as a bit of a throwaway?

Source: Comic Book Movie