Reports have rolled in stating writer/director James Gunn (maybe you’ve heard of him) has been hired on by Warner Bros. to write and possibly direct Suicide Squad 2 (or whatever the title for the sequel will be). For those of you who have not been following industry news over the summer, Gunn was fired by Disney amidst pre-production for Guardians of the Galaxy Vo. 3 over off-color tweets the director sent out a decade ago. The revelation of Gunn’s firing led to a whirlwind of online petitions pleading to get him back in the director’s chair and dozens of think pieces regarding the dangerous precedent this sort of thing can set.

Of course, none of this changed anything. As far as we know, Gunn isn’t coming back to the MCU. At least, not any time soon.

RELATED: With James Gunn, Warner Bros. May Finally Get the Suicide Squad It Wanted

With Gunn essentially being seduced by the Dark Side (at least in terms of the layer of grit most DCEU films wear) of the comic book movie world, it has us wondering how he’ll tackle a Suicide Squad sequel. Gunn has proven himself to competently handle large ensemble casts and make a group of misfit characters instantly relatable without relying on ham-fisted flashbacks, which arguably was the biggest cinematic transgression of David Ayer’s 2016 film Suicide. While there is no doubt Gunn could work his magic with the foundation already laid, perhaps it would be more interesting to see what he would do if he ignored the events of the first film completely and started fresh with the exact same cast.

Don’t Call It A Reboot… Or Do

Long-running film series are weird. The line separating what constitutes a sequel, remake, reboot or companion piece get blurrier and blurrier as years go by. Is 2013’s Evil Dead set in the same universe as the previous films bearing its namesake? Sure. Maybe. Are Sam Rami’s original three films firmly connected as one overarching narrative? Not really, but we consider them a trilogy. Is Batman Forever really a sequel to Batman Returns? Sure a few ancillary characters are played by the same actors and yes, the titular Dark Knight is in it, but the two films couldn’t seem any more different in terms of tone, aesthetics, and plot structure. All of this goes to show that playing with the notion of continuity can be bent to the point of shattering to pieces when it comes to film franchises.

RELATED: David Ayer Praises Hiring of James Gunn for Suicide Squad 2

When someone asks how soon is too soon to reboot an intellectual property, the honest answer is, well, never. We'r certain a lot of readers will not agree with this assessment, but sometimes, if things aren’t working, there’s no shame in hitting the self-destruct button and giving it another go. Just look at Sony's Spider-Man franchise. You guys do remember Amazing Spider-Man 2, right? Yeah, we wish we didn’t either.

In short, rebooting Suicide Squad isn’t necessarily out of the question, especially considering the 180 degree shift in tone the DCEU has taken. Say what you will about Justice League, but it was objectively more fun than the previous outing with Superman.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Everyhitng%20Gunn%20Needs%20Was%20In%20The%20First%20Suicide%20Squad']



Despite being a box office success, Suicide Squad wasn’t received well by critics; it holds a rating of 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. Many reviewers thought it was messy, poorly edited and despite feeling bloated, seemed to be missing important plot elements that were left on the cutting room floor. (Director David Ayer has even expressed frustration regarding this.) Fans were a bit more forgiving, perhaps due to the simple fact they were seeing beloved characters up on the big screen they’d never thought would get to be in a big budget film (fandom can offer a lot of leeway).

But most fans and critics do agree on one point: the majority of the cast was solid. Margot Robbie was captivating as Harley Quinn, Will Smith ruled as Deadshot, and Jay Hernandez brought some heavy emotional weight to the character of El Diablo. Hell, even Jared Leto’s the Joker was interesting to watch (when he actually got some screen time), even if the interpretation wasn’t what many of us were expecting.

RELATED: Suicide Squad 2: Dave Bautista Wants to Join James Gunn on Film

james-gunn-dceu-header

All the key players are there for James Gunn, but the problem is they were already scrambled in a film, a movie with a fallout that has to be carefully navigated in a direct sequel. Sadly, not all the characters we’d like to see again made it out of Suicide Squad alive (it’s right there in the title), which is a shame since some really talented actors and some awesome characters were nothing more than window dressing for the film.

A director like James Gunn could change that if given a Mulligan. As mentioned before, the man knows how to introduce character organically through a straight forward narrative structure with heart and humility. He can do the same with new environments. The audience got introduced to five heroes, a pair of villains, an entire planet’s police force, a band of space pirates, and several other cosmic outposts over the course of two hours in Guardians of the Galaxy, and none of it felt rushed or shoehorned into the story.

Sure, Suicide Squad had more characters to juggle, but the general conceit of the film is nowhere near as high concept as the one in Guardians of the Galaxy. Suicide Squad is basically The Dirty Dozen with supervillains, and that isn’t meant to be a derision of the concept. It’s a simple idea which only really needs someone to prop up the characters to make them relatable. Everything else is already on the page: bad guys do a good thing or die trying. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. That story never gets old.

“But What About Preserving The Continuity Of -”

No. Don't even start with that malarkey.

Continuity does not matter if it gets sacrificed for better storytelling. If you go back and watch Justice League, Batman talks about a version of Superman we know from the comics; it certainly isn’t the hero we saw in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, or in Man of Steel. Sure it’s not honoring the continuity of the film, but it omits the stuff that didn’t work to make room for what should have been there in first place. Justice League asks you to forget all the terrible things that came before it -- at least in tone and characterizations -- and just remember the good stuff and how the character you love should act on screen.

RELATED: Sony’s James Gunn Horror Movie Gets a Name (And a Delay)

Why not do the same thing with Suicide Squad? All those introductions that took up way too much of the first hour of the film could just be casually referenced in a sequel. The characters who died could be back (including Slipknot, who got short-changed more than anyone), and the events of the first film could be touched upon in the vaguest of manners. There’s no need to adhere to any of it as if it’s gospel. Comic book story telling is fluid. Retcons, omissions and outright hard-left turns abound. Why shouldn’t comic book movies do the same thing? After all, the X-Men film franchise has been doing it for nearly twenty years, and everyone seems pretty much cool with what we've been getting in the last few films.