Before David Ayer's
Suicide Squad appeared on the silver screen, fans got their first taste of
Task Force X on the CW's
Arrow. While
Arrow's version of the Squad was a far cry from the classic comic lineup, we still got to see the show's take on classic characters such as Bronze Tiger, Deadshot, and Amanda Waller. Now, in a new interview,
Arrow producer Greg Berlanti confirmed that the Squad's inclusion on the show was a test for audiences to gauge interest in the team for a feature film.
"They said to us a year and a half before they started developing Suicide Squad, 'Will you guys put [a version of] the Suicide Squad in your show? Because we want to have it as a film at some point." Berlanti told
Vulture.
"It also happened with Geoff [Johns] when Geoff and Andrew [Kreisberg] and I were creating Flash. They were both really huge fans of Cisco Ramon, [also known as] Vibe, and had written a Vibe comic [in 2013] to try and bring him back. They said, 'Could we please have Vibe on the show?'"
Ironically enough, Deadshot and Waller were later killed off on the show, apparently due to a mandate from Warner Bros. prohibiting the use of those characters on television.