David Ayer and the cast of Suicide Squad
Picture: James Gunn Twitter

David Ayer’s ‘Suicide Squad’ under-performed at the box office, and he isn’t actively involved with Warner Brothers’ new take, ‘The Suicide Squad’, but he is still being kept in the loop.  Some fans have questioned him on Twitter regarding the new picture, which is being directed by ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn, and Ayer has clarified that Gunn’s version is a “reinvention” not a sequel to his own picture, and he added that he expected Gunn to “absolutely knock it out of the park.”  He further added, “I’m cheering every step a way [sic].”

 

While Ayer’s ‘Suicide Squad’ was part of a tightly interwoven movie universe, modeled after Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner Brothers has relaxed those connections after ‘Suicide Squad’, ‘Batman V Superman’, and ‘Justice League’ proved to be disappointments at the box office, which were trashed by both critics and fans.  While certain connections remain in some movies (for instance, the Superman cameo in ‘Shazam!’), it appears as though ‘The Batman’ will exist in its own continuity, the same as the recent billion-dollar hit ‘Joker’.

 

RELATED:  If The Joker Isn’t In ‘The Suicide Squad’, James Gunn Says That Wouldn’t Be Strange

 

So while some of the stars of Ayer’s movie are also in Gunn’s, they may fit together differently.  Gunn’s ‘The Suicide Squad’ stars Steve Agee as King Shark, Flula Borg as Javelin, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, David Dastmalchian as Polka Dot Man, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Nathan Fillion as Arm-Fall-Off Boy, Sean Gunn as The Weasel, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher, Mayling Ng as Mongal, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Michael Rooker as Savant.

In one side note, Agee appears to not only be providing the voice of King Shark, but the motion capture performance, as he has been photographed among the rest of the cast, unlike Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, who only supply the voices for Rocket and Groot in Gunn’s Marvel movies.  The Rocket mo-cap performance is supplied by Sean Gunn, who also stars in the flesh as Kraglin in those movies, and will appear as The Weasel in ‘The Suicide Squad’.

‘The Suicide Squad’ is scheduled to arrive in theaters on August 6, 2021.