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Trivia / The Suicide Squad

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  • Acclaimed Flop:
    • The film was widely acclaimed by critics and is considered among the best films of the DC Extended Universe, but ended up a Box Office Bomb due to a number of factors, including of course the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic and consequently a less expansive marketing campaign than the first film. It was also hit by a surge in attention to the Executive Meddling the first film underwent (which often superseded discussion about the new film even in mainstream media) and the loss of that film's most reliable box office draws, Will Smith and the Joker. Anecdotal reports indicate the title and largely new cast also caused confusion as to whether the film was a sequel or a reboot. It still managed to be quite successful on HBO Max with its same-day release (the second biggest on the service after Mortal Kombat, and besting both Wonder Woman 1984 and Zack Snyder's Justice League). Despite the poor financial performance, the strong positive reactions to the film and Peacemaker (which was already filmed at the time The Suicide Squad opened) allowed James Gunn to stay on board for further work in the DCEU, and eventually be put in charge of DC Studios.
    • A particular case for France: it got the best reviews there for a DC Comics-inspired theatrical film possibly since The Dark Knight, but got hammered there by the COVID-19 vaccine pass that was required to access theaters (which reportedly slashed the overall box office there by seventy per cent in the days after it was enforced). It also faced two heavyweight competitors in the comedy department, Kaamelott: Premier Volet and OSS 117: From Africa with Love, which were long-awaited and soaked up most of the available air. To wit, the first film pulled over 300,000 cinema admissions on its first day — The Suicide Squad pulled barely over 50,000.
  • Acting for Two:
    • Steve Agee performed King Shark's on-set motion capture, and also appears in person as Waller's right-hand man, John Economos.
    • Sean Gunn plays both Weasel and Calendar Man.
  • Acting in the Dark:
    • The numerous actors who get killed in the film weren’t given any of the script after their character's death.
    • Nathan Fillion apparently wasn't told TDK survives and only “noticed that very loudly” in the theater.
  • Actor-Shared Background:
    • David Dastmalchian was born with vitiligo, a skin condition that caused spots to appear on his skin in various places, and was even nicknamed "Polka-Dots" as a kid. Having this stigma allowed Dastmalchian to really get into Polka Dot Man's character. Dastmalchian maintains that he wants the character to be fully appreciated by anyone who is facing insecurities, be it externally or internally, as he's faced both.
    • Ratcatcher II is from Portugal, like her actress Daniela Melchior.
    • Idris Elba is actually afraid of rats, like his character Bloodsport. Viola Davis also shares the phobia, though she didn't have as many scenes involving Sebastian (nor the in-character phobia) as Elba did.
  • Approval of God:
    • While calling him God in this scenario would be a stretch (as he did not create the Suicide Squad or any of the characters involved), David Ayer, the director of the original 2016 movie, is on good terms with James Gunn and both have made it clear that there were no hard feelings about Gunn taking the reins of this follow-up. Ayer has even gone as far as to say that he's proud of Gunn and that the film is a "miracle of miracles."
    • invoked Savant's creator and the widely considered Real Mommy of King Shark Gail Simone had nothing but very nice things to say about the movie.
    • John Ostrander, creator of Amanda Waller and the modern Suicide Squad, had a cameo in the film and was reportedly "ecstatic" at how the film turned out. He may not have created the Suicide Squad, but he turned it into what it is today, adding the neck bombs, the concept of it using Belle Reve criminals, and adding characters such as Deadshot, Boomerang, and Bronze Tiger to the line up, and created four of the characters in the movie. He's as close to God as the Suicide Squad is gonna get.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Many of the film's actors, including Margot Robbie and Idris Elba, were drawn to the film once James Gunn was attached to direct.
    • John Cena accepted without even letting Gunn finish to explain what kind of project he was cast in.
    • Pete Davidson, meanwhile, agreed as soon as he learned that he was being asked to play a sadsack D-list villain with the civilian name Dick Hertz.
  • Billing Displacement:
    • In the opening credits, Margot Robbie receives top billing as Harley Quinn, just before Idris Elba, who plays the film's main protagonist, Bloodsport.
    • Many of the actors that are credited first, including Nathan Fillion and Jai Courtney, play the members of Squad A that don't even survive to the opening credits.
  • B-Team Sequel: The writer and director of the previous film, David Ayer, did not return for this one, with The Suicide Squad instead being helmed by James Gunn. (Ayer initially stepped away to work on a planned Gotham City Sirens film, before eventually leaving the DCEU entirely to work on Bright and other projects). With only a few exceptions, the majority of the cast from the previous film also don't return, with the ensemble mainly being comprised of new characters.
  • Box Office Bomb: Budget: $185 million. Total box office gross as of 2022: $167.4 million. The failure was attributed to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, its simultaneous release on streaming, the R-rating and lack of advertising, and confusion on its relationship with the previous Suicide Squad (2016).
  • Colbert Bump: The character of Peacemaker was a D-list DC hero at best and his only real claim to fame was inspiring The Comedian from Watchmen. However, in the wake of this film - which recast him as a cold-blooded jackboot - his popularity positively skyrocketed, leading to a spin-off TV show, a starring role in the recent Suicide Squad comic, and his own comic mini-series.
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The AV Club review of the film appeared to mangle the name of Idris Elba's character Bloodsport with that of Will Smith's character from the previous film, Deadshot, referring to him as "Bloodshot". (The reviewer also might have mixed up the name with the Vin Diesel film released the prior year.)
  • Creator Backlash: Gunn has quietly protested the film's same-day release on HBO Max; while he has praised the service in regards to the Peacemaker series, he was reportedly outraged to learn the film would be available to stream alongside its theatrical release and has refused to mention HBO Max when promoting the film, frequently asserting that it was made for theaters, specifically IMAX. He eventually grew more accepting of the strategy following the film's release, hosting a virtual watch party for the film towards the end of its month on the platform.
  • Darkhorse Casting: For the role of Ratcatcher 2 in the film, James Gunn chose Daniela Melchior, an actress who was unknown outside of her native Portugal.
  • Deleted Scene: The Blu-ray has an extended sequence of the "night out", where Nanaue runs from the school bus (it gets the rest of the Squad worried, but turned out he only wanted to play with some children) and Thinker gives a Hannibal Lecture to Polka-Dot Man. And another where the barrier outside Jotunheim stops the school bus and Thinker has to convince the guards to not look inside.
  • Dueling Works: With Army of the Dead, another R-rated film about a team going on a Suicide Mission releasing on streaming in 2021, directed by Zack Snyder — a director with a cult following like Gunn. Both of them worked on 2004's Dawn of the Dead, and Snyder is an executive producer on The Suicide Squad. Dave Bautista actually declined to show up in The Suicide Squad to be in Army of the Dead.
  • Fake Nationality:
    • Harley, with her thick New York accent, is still played by Aussie Margot Robbie. Gets an apparent lampshade when Harley claims Americans don't have accents.
    • Ratcatcher 1 is apparently Portuguese and played by the Kiwi actor Taika Waititi (of Māori, Irish and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry), though his one line of dialogue sounds more British than anything else.
    • Alice Braga plays a native of the fictional but Spanish-speaking nation of Corto Maltese, but is herself a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian.
    • Subverted with Rick Flag. Joel Kinnaman was born and raised in Sweden but his father is American, making him a citizen.
  • Follow the Leader: On the one hand, as soon as James Gunn was fired by Disney in 2018 (which was later overruled), Warner Bros. wasted no time hiring him in an extremely transparent move so he could infuse his Signature Style in the DCEU as it had done wonders for the MCU. On the other hand, he picked the chance to do a sequel to a movie that got a lot of comparisons to his first Guardians of the Galaxy film when he was offered various options. So in a sense, he is following his own leadership.
  • Invisible Advertising: Not necessarily invisible, but the advertising for this film was noticeably smaller than the huge marketing campaign of the first. This could be chalked up to a certain extent due to the previous movie's infamously poor reception and the worldwide pandemic at the time, not to mention that it's harder to promote an R-rated movie as opposed to a PG-13 one.
  • Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": At one point in the movie, a small Mafalda keychain is seen hanging by a windshield inside Milton's truck. While Mafalda (created by Quino) is very well-known in the Spanish speaking world (especially Spain and Argentina) and somewhat well known in the Francophone world (thanks to the 1980s animated series being dubbed there), the series is completely unknown to English-speaking markets (especially the U.S. and Canada with the exception of Québec) and some non-Spanish speaking countries mistaking her for Lucy from the Peanuts series.
  • Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Joaquín Cosío dubs himself as Mateo Suarez in the Latin American Spanish dub.
  • No Stunt Double: According to James Gunn, Margot Robbie did the contortions required for Harley's suspended handcuff escape scene herself, causing him to kick himself for framing the shots in a way that hid her face.
  • Pet Fad Starter: Gunn wanted to include rats in the movie because of this trope, and that unlike raccoons, pet rats are affordable and easy to care for.
  • The Other Darrin: A rather curious case happens in the Japanese dub: King Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone, is voiced by Tesshō Genda in the dub, rather than Isao Sasaki, who is normally his regular Japanese dub voice.note 
  • Playing with Character Type: At face value, Peacemaker being a dramatic Captain Patriotic archetype seems to fit the public image that John Cena established during his time with WWE. But while Cena's usual public image is a sincere and idealistic All-Loving Hero, Peacemaker is a psychotic, twisted perversion of the archetype that borders on villainy, ultimately serving as a stark contrast to Cena's consistently heroic persona from his pro wrestling career.
  • Production Posse:
  • Refitted for Sequel: King Shark was considered for the first movie, but David Ayer didn't want to work with an all-CGI character and chose Killer Croc instead. Now King Shark appears in this film.
  • Role Reprise:
    • Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), and Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang) all return for the first time in 5 years since the first film.
    • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Karla Falcón returns as Harley from previous adaptations and films. Likewise, Irwin Daayán, Laura Torres and Óscar Flores also return from the previous film as Flag, Waller and Captain Boomerang respectively.
    • The same goes again in the Japanese dub, as both Kanako Tojo, Noriko Uemura, Atsushi Miyauchi and Hisao Egawa also return as Harley, Waller, Flag and Captain Boomerang respectively.
  • Sequel Gap: The film will be released five years after the previous Suicide Squad. With that said, this is an extremely short period of time for a Soft Reboot to come out after the original film.
  • Short Run in Peru: The film was released about slightly earlier in some countries ahead of the U.S. release, such as France on July 28, and in the UK, Ireland and Turkey two days later. This was seen by some as the studio's way to compensate for the fact that Wonder Woman 1984 never made it to theaters in some of the aforementioned areas, most notably France, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
  • Throw It In!: Peacemaker saying tighty-whities is racist and his jerk-off motion towards Bloodsport at the rebel's camp was improvised by John Cena.
  • Typecasting: Pete Davidson, Memetic Loser, being cast as Blackguard, one of the great Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains of the DC universe.
  • Vindicated by Cable: The film was a huge hit for HBO Max, being the most-watched DC Films project between it, Wonder Woman 1984, and Zack Snyder's Justice League, and having viewership levels comparable to Amazon's The Tomorrow War (a project on a larger budget which was still successful enough to develop a sequel for). It did well enough that DC reiterated that James Gunn had a future there beyond Peacemaker despite disappointing box office returns, and a short segment at DC FanDome specifically thanked fans for watching the movie on the service or in theaters.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Idris Elba was originally cast to replace Will Smith as Deadshot after Smith passed on the film, allegedly due to scheduling issues. Elba's role was eventually rewritten into a new major character, Bloodsport, so as to leave the door open in case Smith wanted to return in future installments. As such, Storm Reid's character, Tyla, was initially written as Zoe, Deadshot's daughter from the first movie.
    • Dave Bautista had discussions for the part of Peacemaker before the casting of John Cena. However, Bautista turned it down due to filming conflicts with Army of the Dead.
    • Isabela Merced auditioned for the role of Ratcatcher 2 before Daniela Melchior was cast. Merced would later go on to play Hawkgirl in Superman: Legacy.
    • Michael Rosenbaum was offered an unspecified part, but turned down the offer due to complications with his neck surgery at the time.
    • Gavin O'Connor was the first choice to direct the movie before James Gunn was hired. However, O'Connor departed the project due to various Creative Differences over the script, the film's continuous filming delays, and scheduling conflicts with Will Smith's production schedule, as well as studio concerns that the script was too structurally similar to Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (2020). O’Connor’s script would've reportedly featured Black Adam and Supergirl, who would've been depicted as a brainwashed alien bruiser who was forced to work for the antagonists. note 
    • James Gunn considered adding Kite Man to the titular team. However, believing that the character had been used as a punchline in the past far too often already, he eventually decided against it and stated "I didn't think it was the freshest way to go". Gunn then also added "But who knows what the future holds", thereby teasing the possibility of a Kite Man appearance in a future sequel.
    • James Gunn originally wanted to use King Shark's Hammerhead design from the New 52 rather than the Great White look in the finished movie. However, Gunn found the test footage of the Hammerhead design to be unsatisfactory, as the character having eyes on the sides of his head made interactions with the other characters awkward.
    • James Gunn admitted on Twitter that he considered bringing in Dogwelder (from Garth Ennis' Section 8 parody series), but decided against it, as he's an animal lover and that guy's MO was too uncomfortable for even him. After that, there was a brief fan campaign to try and change his mind.
    • According to Joe Manganiello, an early idea for the Suicide Squad sequel would've involved Deathstroke as the main antagonist. In another version, he was going to take the place of Bloodsport according to the early concepts of the film. The dynamic between him and Deadshot seems to be reinvented into the rivalry between Bloodsport and Peacemaker.
    • Gunn briefly mentioned a few villains he considered bringing in as members for this film, having a file folder of potential characters to use, but decided against for the time being because they didn't fit the current story, though he was open to using many of these characters later on. Noteworthy characters included Livewire, Punch and Jewelee, Black Spider, Deathstroke, Man-Bat, Plastique, Chemo, KGBeast, Solomon Grundy, Rainbow Creature, Gunhawk, and Knockout, with him later stating (albeit not with photos) that Bronze Tiger, Killer Frost, and Mr. Freeze were also considered.
    • Katana was originally planned to return for this but her role was cut when James Gunn took over and retooled it into a Soft Reboot along with opting to have Rick Flagg as the only non-villainous member and due to Katana's actress Karen Fukuhara's busy commitments with The Boys.
    • Taika Waititi was offered a unknown part early on, but was busy with the live-action adaptation of Akira. When that stalled, he jokingly asked if the part was still available - it wasn't, but the part of Ratcatcher I was written for him.
    • According to Gunn, the film originally had a much darker ending in which Ratcatcher 2 was murdered by Amanda Waller. After the Squad returned to Belle Reve, Waller would have detonated the bomb in Cleo's head after taking the Jotunheim flash drive from her. As revenge, Bloodsport would have shot Waller with an explosive bullet and used the threat of detonating it to secure the remaining Squad members' freedom. Gunn felt that this was too much of a Downer Ending that clashed with the overall tone of the film.
    • James Gunn admitted that, at one point, he wanted Superman to be the bad guy, but ultimately went against it.
    • Gunn's regular collaborator Tyler Bates was initially set to the score the film, and he even wrote material during pre-production for use during shooting (as he did for the Guardians of the Galaxy series), but left the project for unknown reasons, with John Murphy taking over scoring duties.
    • Polka Dot Man originally survives in James Gunn's first draft, but later rewrites saw him realize that the stakes had to keep rising including the death of another beloved character.
    • Flo Crawley was originally going to get arrested at the end of the film for knocking out Waller with her own golf club to save the Squad but the scene was trimmed for numerous reasons. This is why John Economos and Emilia Harcourt are the only ones returning for the spin-off Peacemaker and the scene would later be added to the recap of the film for show.
  • Word of God:
    • James Gunn has stated that he never considered putting the Joker in the film, or talked to Jared Leto about it, due to his not having any useful skills for the squad's mission.
    • Prior to the film's release, Gunn revealed that Superman survived being shot with Kryptonite by Bloodsport, after some fans expressed concern that Superman was being written out of the franchise.
    • After the film's release, Gunn explained that Waller assigned Flag to Squad A, intending to sacrifice him as a distraction, because Flag casually insulted her sometime before the film's events.
    • Gunn explained that Polka-Dot Man is not actually as broken up about Milton's death as he seems, and was merely seizing an opportunity for attention and second-hand sympathy.
  • Word of St. Paul: Borg listed Javelin's crimes as killing many people and one cow.
  • You Look Familiar: Mayling Ng (Mongal) previously played the Amazon Orana in Wonder Woman.

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