THE SUICIDE SQUAD Director James Gunn Says His Original Pitch Had A Darker Ending - SPOILERS

THE SUICIDE SQUAD Director James Gunn Says His Original Pitch Had A Darker Ending -  SPOILERS

The Suicide Squad gets pretty dark in places, and it sounds like it could have been even bleaker. James Gunn has now revealed that his original pitch for the movie had "a little bit of a darker ending."

By MarkCassidy - Aug 06, 2021 04:08 AM EST
Filed Under: The Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad is far from a bleak film (it actually takes a pretty light-hearted approach to the bloody carnage on display), but it does have its share of grim/disturbing moments, and it sounds like James Gunn's original idea for this take on Task Force X was even darker.

During an interview with THR, Gunn was asked if Warner Bros. balked at any of the movie's more off-the-wall concepts like Polka-Dot Man and a "rat whisperer," and the filmmaker revealed that only one thing from his original pitch was changed: A darker ending.

"No, I really felt like they were incredibly excited by all that stuff," he said. "I mean, that was my original pitch to Walt [Hamada] and Toby [Emmerich] over at Warner Bros. I brought in pictures of all those guys because I knew it would be hard to keep track of. So I brought in all these photos from the comics of all the different characters that are on team one, team two, and Starro. And the pitch was almost exactly what the movie was. There’s actually a little bit of a darker ending to the pitch that changed, but besides that, everything was exactly the same."

Though the final act of The Suicide Squad does take us on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster (we lose Rick Flag and Polka-Dot Man), the very end is actually quite uplifting, so we'd be vey interested to learn more about Gunn's original plan for the surviving characters. Maybe Bloodsport decided to leak the Starro files after all and lost his head for his troubles?

Tell us, have you watched The Suicide Squad yet? If so, what did you think? You can check out our 5-star review below.

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KWilly
KWilly - 8/6/2021, 4:41 AM
Starro looked incredible in this film. Bravo to translating such a weird comic book character to the big screen so well.

That being said, anyone who knows Starro, knows he was nerfed in here lol. Harley Quinn and a bunch of rats shouldn't even put a dent in the big guy.
TheClungerine
TheClungerine - 8/6/2021, 8:00 AM
@KWilly - whilst watching I was hoping the squad will fail and leave starro rampaging through the city, ending the movie on a cliff hanger......
Which would then set up the next JL movie where they take the remaining members of the squad along for the ride to defeat him.
colonel179
colonel179 - 8/6/2021, 1:17 PM
@TheClungeMaker - Man, I was thinking the exact same thing when Starro started rampaging. I was like: This have to be a job for the Justice League, there is no way they can't defeat him. It could have been an awesome way to connect the movies and characters MCU-like (and a way WB always wanted). Sadly, WB is too stupid to think that way.

Also, the Justice League was killed by WB, at least until after The Flash movie to see how things will be left out. This is so disappointing and a wasted huge opportunity.
Himura
Himura - 8/6/2021, 1:37 PM
@colonel179 - If they didnt have Starro kill everyone they took over, they couldve also gone the route of the Justice League being turned by Starro and the Suicide Squad would have to stop them.

That'd be an entirely different movie though that what we got lol.
mgeoff88
mgeoff88 - 8/6/2021, 4:42 AM
The Suicide Squad was great. That’s what the first movie should’ve been.

I’m glad they didn’t go with a darker ending. I’m still shocked about Rick Flag though.

What’s funny is, I had a strong feeling Weasel was still alive. I think Savant just told everyone Weasel was dead, because he wasn’t willing to perform CPR on him.
LSHF
LSHF - 8/6/2021, 2:40 PM
@mgeoff88 - Agreed.

I was going to post a list of unanswered questions, and one of them was "Why didn't Savant perform CPR on Weasel?" I'm guessing the answer goes without saying.
globaltravels
globaltravels - 8/6/2021, 9:51 PM
@mgeoff88 - Rip Flag
IronGenesis
IronGenesis - 8/6/2021, 4:44 AM
I wonder how long Wallers team had been working with her and Task Force X. I get Gunn having to set up the eventual mutiny,..but do these characters not know who Amanda Waller is or what Task Force X does. To always be so utterly shocked/horrified by her “ethics/morals/decisions” seemed a little strange. Or did I miss it that they were all newbies?
UltimaRex
UltimaRex - 8/6/2021, 5:16 AM
@IronGenesis - She shot her old staff in the first movie.

I'm not surprised no one remembered that.
IronGenesis
IronGenesis - 8/6/2021, 6:55 AM
@UltimaRex - which makes me wonder why any of them are all alive after the stuff they pulled in this.

But you know…that is great about really “smart, analytical” characters.

Even if there is a plot hole, or plot hole or out of character moment…it can always be retconned later saying “it was part of some larger master plan”
Himura
Himura - 8/6/2021, 1:39 PM
@IronGenesis - I'm surprised she didnt at the very least kill the person who hit her with a putter
LSHF
LSHF - 8/6/2021, 2:41 PM
@Himura - I would be surprised if the person who hit her is in the next Suicide Squad film.
DoubleD
DoubleD - 8/6/2021, 4:45 AM
Weekend Box Office Forecast: The Suicide Squad Targets Best ‘R’ Debut of Pandemic, But Faces Escalating Challenges.

The Suicide Squad three day weekend predicted = $28,000,000. Even my jaw dropped.

While Black Widow 169.7 million now number one at the box office and tops F9, 169.6 million.
DoubleD
DoubleD - 8/6/2021, 5:43 AM
@DoubleD - Black Widow is looking at another $3,900,000 million domestic this weekend. making it 174,400.000 million.

And still no China release date locked down.
kitheka
kitheka - 8/7/2021, 3:16 AM
@DoubleD - global, F9 is @ 650M while BW is @ 350M.
DoubleD
DoubleD - 8/7/2021, 7:03 AM
@kitheka - Black Widow still hasn't opened in China still working on it.
kitheka
kitheka - 8/7/2021, 11:35 PM
@DoubleD - it won't open in China and even if it did, it would flop due to majority of the Chinese audience have already seen it from clear HD torrents.
TheFinestSmack
TheFinestSmack - 8/6/2021, 4:55 AM
A whole article to tease us there was a darker ending, without actually revealing the darker ending. Ya killin' me!
Tensorpants
Tensorpants - 8/6/2021, 7:28 PM
@TheFinestSmack - No doubt, moron journalists
GhostDog
GhostDog - 8/6/2021, 4:58 AM
Such a ridiculously entertaining movie
CurlyBill
CurlyBill - 8/6/2021, 5:21 AM
At first I thought that the Squad was going actsuly going to leave and let Starro have control of corto maltese, so maybe that was similar to what Gunn had planned originally.

Also leave it to Gunn to actually make me feel sympathy for a a gigantic space starfish..
" I was happy floating up there.. watching the stars"
Dredd97
Dredd97 - 8/6/2021, 5:35 AM
@CurlyBill - that last line actually got me. I liked how almost every bad character got a bit of a sympathetic moment
Batman5
Batman5 - 8/6/2021, 6:11 AM
@CurlyBill - yea I felt bad for the poor guy there lol
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 8/6/2021, 7:37 AM
@CurlyBill - I was so hoping they’d just walk away. Maybe see the justice league from a distance fly in. Since they are the hero’s and task force X are the villains. Also I think it would have been great to have a stinger of them miles away and then a superman landing beside them with one of the starfish on his face. Oh shit. Cut to credits. That’s just me writing fan fiction at that point though
dagenspear
dagenspear - 8/7/2021, 7:08 AM
@CurlyBill - My reaction: Maybe you shouldn't have flown into the ship and took over humans.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 8/6/2021, 6:07 AM
I wasn't into the movie.
LSHF
LSHF - 8/6/2021, 2:45 PM
@dagenspear - I noticed. What's up with that?
dagenspear
dagenspear - 8/6/2021, 5:20 PM
@LSHF - What are you asking about?
LSHF
LSHF - 8/6/2021, 8:04 PM
@dagenspear - What's up with you not being in the movie?

What else would I be asking about? It's literally the only thing I could have responded to; "I wasn't into the movie."
dagenspear
dagenspear - 8/7/2021, 12:36 AM
@LSHF - I don't know. I thought you may have accidentally replied to me, when trying to reply to someone else.

SPOILERS:



I think the movie's pacing was nonsense and that the editing was fairly flawed in how it did things. Like the movie would reach points where it forgot to tell us about something and then had an extended flashback to show us, in order to piece the movie together. I think this happened, like, maybe 3 times in the movie. I feel like it threw the emotion of things off and cut the tension of some scenes off at the knees. Oh no Ratcatcher's gonna be shot. FLASBACK to whole sequence of events, including a comedic argument that circles right back around to where we were before.

Starting off killing a bunch of people I barely knew, and one from the previous movie, violently, I felt numb and I felt like it was a cheap gotcha moment. I didn't feel really connected to much of the characters, except Ratcatcher, and even then I think I only really did at the end. When Polka Dot Man (who I kinda thought I could be interested in as a character) died, I rolled my eyes. When Rick Flag died, I was like, "Oh, that's... sad? I guess." I almost feel like Flag got token attempts at honorable moments, in order to justify his turn at the end. And when Peacemaker turned on him, I think I was like, "oh, that's happening." Harley's story, if you could call it that, I thought was kinda pointless and only had 1 or 2 parts that I thought worked. The rest I thought was her hallucinating or something and felt like a pointless detour from the story, to me, and only really served to emphasize where she was as a character. Bloodsport was okay, I guess. But I felt he was like a not as compelling Deadshot and him and his daughter yelling at eachother didn't endear them to me.

The violence almost felt mean spirited and not very intense or dramatic, to me.
LSHF
LSHF - 8/7/2021, 5:29 AM
@dagenspear - Thank you for the reply, and I owe you an apology for being an idiot. I "thought" you stated that you were not "in" the movie (as a joke). I missed the "into" the movie. My bad. Duh!

Yea, the movie had lots of stuff that lots of people liked, and also lots of people didn't like the same stuff. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, as there was a lot to enjoy. I just ignore the negative thoughts that might go through my head, as it hinders my enjoyment of movies, and it seems to help me enjoy them more, so I don't end up wasting time and money watching a movie. And I go to movies to enjoy them.

Was there anything you liked about it?
dagenspear
dagenspear - 8/7/2021, 7:06 AM
@LSHF - Like I pointed out: Ratcatcher. Parts of Polka Dot Man's character. Some things here in there, but not enough, for me, for the movie, as a whole. Parts here and there of Harley's story, but the story itself, as a whole I thought was dumb and pointless, like just another thing to throw in for the plot: The people of their country idolize Harley? Huh? For the most part I felt the performances weren't bad.
LSHF
LSHF - 8/7/2021, 8:41 AM
@dagenspear - Okay. Thanks for your response.

I just don't give movies that much thought. I just try to enjoy what is in front of me.

Thanks again.
WaffeX
WaffeX - 8/6/2021, 6:34 AM
good movie, entertaining but nothing special, it wasn't very funny, I've never laughed, I've grinned 3 or 4 times, James Gunn Guardians movies were so much better, specially the first one

7/10 Starros
McMurdo
McMurdo - 8/6/2021, 7:40 AM
@WaffeX - sounds pretty universally better than Guardians 1 based on characterization alone and which is good for me cuz I though GotG 1 was a by the book MCU movie. I’m glad the characters take front and center here.
adamcawa
adamcawa - 8/6/2021, 8:41 AM
@WaffeX - you didn't laugh when harley said "is it a werefolf" and blackguard lost his shit? that was funny as hell.
MikeDrop1
MikeDrop1 - 8/6/2021, 9:20 AM
@McMurdo -

Depends who you ask, I've seen movie when it came out a week ago. In the uk, and I think it will depend on the person, I think some will like suicide squad more. Some will like gotg 1 more, for me there about even. I do need see suicide squad again tho.
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