In the wake of Empire's Suicide Squad cover story, a film about a superhero team-up of villains sent out to do the jobs no one else will do, we have been given a wealth of details about the upcoming project by David Ayer, courtesy of Comicbookmovie.
There is no doubt that the Suicide Squad is a film on everyone's radar for 2016. It is the first movie to have a live-action Harley Quinn in it! If that is not enough to make you squee, Jared Leto is going to be one hell of an insane Joker, if those who have seen his performance already are to be believed. Ayer even told Empire, "There's a power to that character, and by some freaking miracle, through the incredible things Jared has done and the photography and all of the other millions of things that went into it, we've cooked up something transcendent. He's scary." The movie also hosts an all-star cast. With weapons like this, we have big expectations for the Suicide Squad.
The main thing to focus on about this movie is how adamant all of the people involved in the film keep saying how different this movie will be from other superhero movies. I don't know if this is a good thing yet, or a bad thing. Usually this kind of push at promoting a different take means that bad things may be coming in the near future.
Charles Roven told Empire (via ComicBookMovie), "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." It seems as though Roven and Warner Bros. are confident in the film that Ayer has made. Roven went on to say, "It's impossible that you could get a big tent pole picture from pitch to start of principal photography and faster than we did."
But why is this film going to be different? There are a few things that a first look will hint at. The first one is David Ayer's color palette of the film. The footage is filled with over-saturated colors and neons. This gives everything in frame an edgy, cartoon/comic appearance. the second one is taking a character, The Joker, fresh after and Academy Award winning performance by the late Heath Ledger. This is a risky move, and if it pays off could reap big rewards for Warner Bros.
According to Ayer, Suicide Squad is different because, "You know, all these movies are about defeating the evil alien robot from f--king Planet X, before it destroys the world with its ticking clock. And who the f--k cares?. But you do this story about struggle and isolation and people who have been s--t 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, his attitude is in the right place. It is a hard sale, to knock other superhero films who are all highly successful right now. David Ayer looks to give the superhero film genre the boost it may need to get over going stagnate.
Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 5, 2016.
