‘The Suicide Squad’ seeks redemption for DC supervillains — and director

August 5 ------ When James Gunn was asked to direct the next DC superhero film, he didn’t pick an icon like Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. He chose the rag-tag group of Z-list villains known as “The Suicide Squad.” Gunn’s R-rated romp brings back familiar faces like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn in a sequel-of-sorts to the near-identically named 2016 “Suicide Squad” — which saw anti-heroes join deadly US government missions to shave time off their prison terms. And then there are some more obscure newcomers… like Polka Dot Man.

“I literally put into Google, ‘who is the dumbest super villain of all time?’ And Polka Dot Man always came up near the top,” said Gunn. “Being able to take a character like that and then give him heart was fun for me,” Gunn told a recent virtual press event for the film, out Friday. Gunn’s approach to choosing his gallery of expendable rogues might at first seem unlikely to inspire confidence among money-counting Warner Bros executives.

Even David Dastmalchian, the actor playing him and a self-avowed comic book nerd, initially “had no freaking clue who Polka Dot Man was.” But the first film’s success suggests that plumbing the comic book world’s depths for less-than-mainstream characters does not hurt in terms of movie popularity. The original “Suicide Squad” shrugged off poor reviews to take almost $750 million at the global box office.

Like the first film, “The Suicide Squad” has its share of big-name actors — Will Smith and Jared Leto have moved on, but are replaced by John Cena, Idris Elba and Sylvester Stallone, who appears as the voice of a half-man, half-shark. According to Elba, playing Bloodsport — a “character that wasn’t as well-defined as a personality” — allowed the actors more freedom. “It was ‘let’s find a character who’s obscure, who we can build as our own cinematic creation for Idris,'” agreed Gunn.

Source: inquirer.net