We're Bad Guys, It's What We Do: 10 Fascinating Behind-The-Scenes Facts About DCEU's Suicide Squad
After Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice introduced a much wider world around Henry Cavill’s Superman, that world started getting fleshed out in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Amanda Waller assembles Task Force X, a Dirty Dozen-style team of imprisoned supervillains, to take down a common enemy, Enchantress.
Ayer had a famously nightmarish time making the movie, as Warner Bros. gave him just a handful of weeks to write the script from conception to final draft, and then enforced a ton of reshoots in response to the unexpected success of Deadpool. Here are 10 interesting details from the making of Suicide Squad.
10 David Ayer Only Had Six Weeks To Write The Script
When David Ayer was first hired to write and direct Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. only gave him six weeks to complete the screenplay. To really write a great script, screenwriters need a few months to play around with the material and flesh it out, but Ayer didn’t have that freedom.
And after he met the strict deadline and started working on the movie, studio executives got cold feet about the tone and dug their hooks into Ayer’s vision.
9 Jared Leto And Margot Robbie Didn’t Rehearse Any Of Their Scenes Together
The cast of Suicide Squad underwent plenty of rehearsals, but Jared Leto and Margot Robbie didn’t rehearse any of their scenes together.
David Ayer felt that avoiding rehearsals and letting the scenes unravel on the day of shooting would help to add to the unpredictability of the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship.
8 Almost Every Leading Man In Hollywood Was Considered For The Role Of Deadshot
When casting was underway for Suicide Squad, the producers considered casting just about every leading man in Hollywood in the role of Deadshot before the ultimate leading man, Will Smith, took the part.
The actors considered include Daniel Craig, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Idris Elba, Colin Farrell (who’s playing the Penguin in The Batman), Michael Fassbender, Jon Hamm, Oscar Isaac, Matthew McConaughey, Ewan McGregor (who went on to play Black Mask in Birds of Prey), Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, and Jason Statham.
7 Zack Snyder Directed The Flash’s Scene
There are a couple of scenes in Suicide Squad that tie it to the wider DCEU, including Batfleck’s brief appearance in a car chase with the Joker and Harley Quinn.
The Flash also makes a cameo appearance. Zack Snyder directed this scene to set up the Flash’s expanded role in Justice League, which was still a year away from release back then.
6 Tom Hardy Was Originally Cast As Rick Flag
In the casting process for Suicide Squad, the role of Rick Flag, a member of Task Force X in the comics, was initially given to Tom Hardy, who had previously played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
However, production on The Revenant ended up taking a lot longer than anticipated, running over by three months, so Hardy was unable to make the Suicide Squad shoot and the role of Rick Flag went to Joel Kinnaman.
5 Warner Bros. Meddled With David Ayer’s Vision
According to David Ayer, he had a much darker, grittier vision for the movie than Warner Bros. executives did. After the positive response to Deadpool and the critical failure of Batman v Superman, Warner Bros. wanted Ayer to completely change the tone of his film.
The studio cut together a trailer for Suicide Squad and then reshot and reshaped the movie to resemble a feature-length version of that trailer.
4 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Had To Spend Five Hours In The Makeup Chair
On every shooting day for Suicide Squad, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje had to spend five hours in the makeup chair to achieve the look of Killer Croc. This left him boiling hot as he was buried under heavy prosthetics, which was made even worse by the fact that he had to wear clothes on top of that.
Meanwhile, Harley Quinn's pale skin and tattoos had Margot Robbie spending three hours with the makeup team.
3 Jared Leto Stayed In Character As The Joker Off-Camera
It doesn’t sound like working with Jared Leto on Suicide Squad was very fun, as he decided to remain in character as the Joker off-camera.
He mailed "presents" to his co-stars that he thought the Joker would give them, sending bullets to Will Smith, a live rat to Margot Robbie, "sticky" Playboy magazines to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and anal beads, used condoms, and a dead pig to the crew. Smith said that he never met Leto and only ever got to speak to the Joker.
2 Jay Hernandez Fought Warner Bros. To Keep El Diablo’s Backstory Intact
According to Jay Hernandez, executives at Warner Bros. were worried about El Diablo’s backstory, fearing that a character having killed his family would make him too unlikable.
Hernandez found the character to be fascinating as he was and had to fight executives in order to keep El Diablo’s origins intact.
1 Ryan Gosling Was The Top Choice To Play The Joker
Before Jared Leto was cast to play the Joker in Suicide Squad, the producers’ top choice for the role was Ryan Gosling. However, he was unwilling to commit to multiple movies. As it turned out, Leto didn’t need to worry about multiple movies anyway.
Before Leto was chosen, Matt Smith, Sharlto Copley, and Mark Strong were all considered for the part. Strong went on to appear in Shazam! as the villainous Doctor Sivana.