6 Things We Can Expect From Suicide Squad 2 With Gavin O'Connor As Director
Suicide Squad 2: Batfleck Returns.
While the deal isn't fully signed and sealed just yet, it's looking very, very likely that director Gavin O'Connor (Warrior, Jane Got A Gun, The Accountant) will be at the helm for Suicide Squad 2.
According to reports, O'Connor has been tapped to both write and direct the upcoming sequel, with he and his frequent writing partner Anthony Tambakis set to work on a draft of the script after Warner Bros approved of their pitch for the movie.
At face value, this is an interesting, but safe choice on Warner Bros' part; O'Connor isn't really known for his big-budget fare (he's never directed a film that cost over $44 million) and Suicide Squad is an enormous, triple-A franchise, but, his pre-existing relationship with the studio - they collaborated on The Accountant - means that they know he'll be able to play ball.
All that aside, O'Connor is a talented, often underappreciated filmmaker with a number of critical darlings under his belt, but what might his interpretation of a Suicide Squad movie look like?
Based on everything we know so far about the project - as well as O'Connor's film history - it's possible to make several educated guesses...
6. None Of The Original Film's Quirky Style Choices
If there's one word that aptly describes Suicide Squad, it's messy. The film was, of course, the product of multiple creative inputs, with director David Ayer favouring a darker, grittier cut and Warner Bros preferring the lighter, flashier version of the movie that a trailer park had cut together.
The text overlays and plentiful music tracks the film used were very clearly remnants of the latter version of the film that had been poorly spliced with Ayer's version, making the movie feel incoherent, and, well... messy.
Warner Bros (and Gavin O'Connor) will be more than aware of the negative feedback this part of the movie received - the flashy, 'style for the sake of style' part, the part Warner Bros favoured but David Ayer would never have included had he been allowed to fully execute his own vision.
The parts of Suicide Squad that people generally liked were the 'Ayer' parts, the smaller character moments that said more than a wall of text ever could - the Deadshot shooting range scene, Diablo's backstory, the bar scene - and Gavin O'Connor, whose films are packed with moments like this, wouldn't want to slap a load of text on the screen and literally spell things out for people.
Or, to put it another way: after the struggle Warner Bros endured behind the scenes of Suicide Squad, they'll let Gavin O'Connor make his own movie, and these quirky stylistic choices are not something he is likely to include.