James Gunn Announces Full Cast Of The Suicide Squad

Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad

It’s been a minute since we last saw the DC Extended Universe’s version of the Suicide Squad, but the officially-designated Task Force X will be back in theaters soon, this time with James Gunn at the helm. While we’ve gotten some casting confirmations and reports for The Suicide Squad over the past several months, Gunn has officially unveiled the full cast for this sequel/reboot/relaunch/whatever this movie is. Check it out!

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Some of these names will look familiar to you, whether it’s because they appeared in 2016’s Suicide Squad or you’ve seen them in other high-profiled projects, and other names you might not be familiar with, but James Gunn made one thing clear in his postings about The Suicide Squad cast on social media: “don’t get too attached.”

In other words, just like the Suicide Squad adventures in the comics, no one isn’t disposable; there will be causalities, and I suspect even more compared the last movie. Perhaps this'll result in The Suicide Squad getting a R rating rather than the standard PG-13 for a lot on offerings in this genre.

As far as keeping ties to the first Suicide Squad movie go, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman have that covered. We’ve known for a while that Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Amanda Waller and Rick Flag would all be back for another round of explosive action, though it remains to be seen if we’ll learn what happened to the other Squad members who made it out of the last movie alive.

Other familiar names include David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Steve Agee, Idris Elba, Storm Reid, John Cena Flula Borg, Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, Taika Waititi and Peter Capaldi. All of those folks had previously been reported to appear, as had Michael Rooker, who previously denied he’d be playing King Shark.

Regardless, of those individuals, all but four of those actors have identified characters. David Dastmalchian will play Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melchior will be Ratcatcher, Steve Agee will fill the King Shark role and Storm Reid will appear as the daughter of Idris Elba’s character. John Cena was also rumored to be in the running to play Peacemaker, but we have yet to learn if that is indeed his role or if he’ll play a different character.

Finally, we have the names that hadn’t been mentioned until now: Sean Gunn (who has collaborated with his brother many times and got a sneak peek at the script), Joaquín Cosío, Mayling Ng, Juan Diego Botto, Alice Braga, Tinashe Kajese, Julio Ruiz and Jennifer Holland. Ideally we’ll learn who they, as well as most of the other new folks joining The Suicide Squad, are playing in the months to come.

James Gunn delivered on his promise earlier this week to give fans a casting update for The Suicide Squad, and it makes sense it’s come out now considering that principal photography is about to begin in Atlanta, Georgia. No specific plot details have been revealed yet, but Gunn has also promised that we can expect plenty of “explosions and falling structures” in the movie.

The Suicide Squad charges into theaters on August 6, 2021, so keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on its development. Don’t forget to also look through our DC movies guide to learn what else is in the works for this superhero franchise.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.