There’s a lot of excitement surrounding DC’s upcoming film The Suicide Squad. After 2016’s Suicide Squad was met with mixed reactions (though I enjoyed it) and the DCEU seemed to head towards an uncertain fate, Warner Bros. earned a slam dunk. They brought in James Gunn to the party. Gunn is probably most well-known for directing the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel. While he will be returning for the third installment, it’s exciting to see Gunn’s take on a DC film – which, have been a bit darker and grim in nature in the last five or more years.
The Set is Massive
According to Total Film, who was able to see the set of The Suicide Squad and talk to those involved, the scale of the film is massive. Gunn himself said:
“I love seeing things on set as they happen. And I love being able to give something for the actors and the camera folks to deal with practically. By having so many enormous practical sets in this movie, I think it just makes for a richer experience, a more creative one. The Suicide Squad has more practical effects than all of my [previous] movies combined.”
Margot Robbie, who plays Harley Quinn; agreed with this sentiment – expressing she enjoys doing films as “practically as possible”:
“I’ve done movies before where I didn’t know how big something was going to be because it was done in CGI, and then you see it on screen, and I’m like, ‘Okay, if I knew was going to look like that my reaction would have been very, very different.’ [When it’s done practically] you get an adrenaline rush that you just can’t really replicate, no matter how hard you’re pushing your imagination. One of our first scenes shooting was on a beach, actually coming out of the water running through the sand. I had explosions going on all around me like I was in a warzone, and you really can’t replicate your reactions quite the same way as when something blows up in your face!”
New Locations
So, what can we expect? In the first Suicide Squad film, we saw our unlikely heroes (aka “bad guys”) fight off their enemy in a metropolitan setting of a big city. Here, we’re seeing the fictional island of Corto Maltese – off the coast of Argentina. It’s teased that the movie is traveling here for a portion of the film due to Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis, who is reprising her role from the first film) dispatching the new Suicide Squad.
Producer Peter Safran explains:
“There’s recently been a military coup and on Corto Maltese there’s a prison/medical experiment building called Jotunheim. Amanda Waller is sending the Suicide Squad into Corto Maltese to destroy Jotunheim before the leaders of the military coup discover the secrets that are inside there. That’s the mission.”
More Harley Quinn
As mentioned before, the first Suicide Squad garnered mixed reactions. However, everyone was pretty much in agreement that Robbie was perfect as the clown princess of Gotham, Harley Quinn. After Suicide Squad, she went on to reprise her role in the female-led film Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. The Suicide Squad will make her third outing as the popular comic book character.
Robbie talks about her character in this film and the journey she’s on:
“Something I noticed about Harley from the start is she’s always going to have more fun when she’s in a group dynamic. I’ve always said putting Harley on her own would be like putting a kid on a playground on their own. It’s never going to be as fun as when it’s populated with other kids to play with. [When she’s] in a group you’re always going to see the most come out of her personality because she’s got people to play with and pick apart or fall in love with or backstab or whatever. She’s always decided how she feels about the people around her and then acts accordingly, which is always unpredictable.”
Who is the Team?
While we have Robbie as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang returning, the new movie has a whole crew of different and new members of Task Force X. While the first film had more familiar baddies in their roster, this roster has some ludicrous members. Such as Polka Dot Man, the Ratcatcher, and more. So, why did Gunn pick this new group of a@@holes?
“I love the original John Ostrander run on Suicide Squad where the very simple concept is a bunch of B-grade, C-grade, Z-grade supervillains, who are bunched up because they’re considered expendable,” says Gunn. “I think that’s at the centre of what this movie it is. It is a military caper film, which is a genre that was very popular in the ’60s with movies like The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, and Kelly’s Heroes, and that has largely disappeared from screens today. To be able to create that type of story with folks wearing goofy costumes has been a blast.”
Specifically, why did Gunn choose Polka-Dot Man?
“Polka-Dot Man is great, but I did think I needed a character who’s thought of as one of the dumbest ever,” Gunn admits. “So I went and looked online, ‘Who’s the dumbest DC character of all time?’ and it was Polka-Dot Man. We’ve turned that character who’s a sad, pathetic character into a character who’s depressed because people think he’s stupid. He has a very tragic story that you learn about throughout the film – to be able to add depth to characters who are thought of as the silliest is a fun thing for me to do.”
David Dastmalchian, who plays Polka-Dot Man; spoke on his character:
“It’s all I ever dreamed of getting to do as an actor! Since I was a little boy watching Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, dreaming about getting to do a fully realized actual performance incorporating an intense practical make-up… Of course, there’s going to be amazing digital effects – and we have the best digital effects team in the business on this on this film – but James wants so much gritty, tangible practicality in what the audience is going to experience. I’m just excited for people to experience that.”
For the full behind-the-scenes scoop of The Suicide Squad, check out the expose from Total Film here. Are you excited for this new outing for the worst heroes you can have? I know I am!
Source: Total Film
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