Suicide Squad 2 May Not Start Production Until Fall 2018

Suicide Squad 2 won’t start filming until fall of 2018, according to the latest update on the DC Extended Universe movie sequel. The reason? Costar Will Smith’s busy schedule.

The story of a motley crew of imprisoned supervillains enlisted by a shadowy government agency to ostensibly do some good in the world, Suicide Squad was the third entry into the DCEU, after director Zack Snyder’s one-two punch of Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. The film would ultimately share Batman V Superman’s fate with both critics and at the box office, bringing in $745 million worldwide. Since then, both a direct Suicide Squad sequel and a pair of spinoff films (more about them later) have been put into development.

Despite previous reports that Suicide Squad 2 is being fast-tracked, the movie most likely won’t start filming for another year from the time of writing this. Variety‘s Justin Kroll is reporting that the film isn’t expected to begin production until fall 2018 at the earliest, as Smith will be busy with other projects in the meantime – most notably, voicing/playing The Genie in Disney and director Guy Ritchie’s live-action Aladdin retelling/remake.

Suicide Squad director David Ayer is not involved with the sequel and is instead attached to helm one of the two previously-mentioned spinoff films, Gotham City Sirens. In addition to the villain-centric Gotham City Sirens, DC is also developing a spinoff film featuring Jared Leto’s Joker and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn – who, along with Smith’s Deadshot, were the standouts of the first Suicide Squad movie. This arguably raises the question of whether Suicide Squad 2 is a necessity in the first place, despite Warner Bros. and DC’s plans to move forward with the sequel.

Suicide Squad, while a financial success, was a bust with critics and had its origins in the pre-Geoff Johns regime of the DCEU. In these respects, the continuation of the Suicide Squad films arguably feels out of step with the franchise’s current direction post-Wonder Woman (the biggest film of the summer) and its efforts to introduce more DC Comics characters to the big screen for the first time. Given the bevy of DC Comics films that are currently in some stage of development, ranging from David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! to a non-DCEU based Joker origin film, it’s easy to see how Suicide Squad 2 could end up on the DCEU’s back-burner for awhile.