It was the question on everyone’s mind after it was announced that James Gunn would write and possibly direct the Suicide Squad followup: will Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista defect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to whatever DC is cooking up? He hopes to! (I do, too. Drax the Destroyer is not one to put up with Jared Leto’s nonsense.) Also, where’s David Ayer, who directed the original Suicide Squad, in all this? He’s still in the DCEU (he’s developing Margot Robbie’s Gotham City Sirens), but it sounds like he won’t be directly involved with the most twisted (but not damaged) of sequels.
Ayer did, however, give his blessing to James Gunn.
“I think it’s an incredibly brave and smart move by the studio,” he tweeted. “James is the right man for the job!” Maybe he’s being sarcastic, as some of his Twitter followers seem to think, but, more likely than not, he’s being genuine. If anything, Ayer is probably happy that literally anyone else has the job, following the ribbing he took from critics (“I got my throat cut”) and how much he agonized over not making the Joker “the main bad guy.” As for Suicide Squad 2, there’s still no officially-announced director yet, after the original choice, Gavin O’Connor, left the project to hopefully make The Accountant 2. Like everything in the entertainment industry, it always comes back to Ben Affleck.
I think it’s an incredibly brave and smart move by the studio. James is the right man for the job! https://t.co/KaVD3dQosR
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) October 9, 2018