James Gunn Took The Suicide Squad Cast To See Joker, And The Photo Is Revealing

Jai Courtney Captain Boomerang looks surprised Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad is now filming, and director James Gunn took his cast to see the premiere of fellow DC movie Joker. Gunn shared a photo of the cast together and what we see and don't see is pretty revealing. It's not revealing about Joker, since the stars have yet to weigh in on the controversial movie, but I'd be surprised if they did anything but praise it. It would be interesting to hear them compare Joaquin Phoenix's Joker to Jared Leto's Suicide Squad Joker, but they have yet to do that.

The 13 people in the photo do tell us other things, though. Here's the pic:

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James Gunn and producer Peter Safran were joined by Guardians of the Galaxy's Pom Kelmentieff, who is not in The Suicide Squad. The rest appear to be cast members -- Margot Robbie, who is returning from Suicide Squad as Harley Quinn; Joel Kinnaman is back as Rick Flag; and Jai Courtney is back as Captain Boomerang.

We also see newcomers whose characters have not yet been confirmed: Daniela Melchior, Nathan Fillion, Mayling Ng, Sean Gunn, and unless my eyes are mistaken that should be 6'6" Steve Agee in the back. He was rumored to be voicing King Shark in The Suicide Squad.

James Gunn shared a slightly different group pose on Instagram:

A photo posted by on

My knee-jerk reactions:

1. So that's where Pete Davidson was instead of at Saturday Night Live for the Season 45 premiere.2. Nathan Fillion is getting very thin. For this, for The Rookie, just for life? I haven't been keeping up with his physique, so it raised my eyebrows.3. Flula Borg looks like the class clown.4. Steve Agee looks like he doesn't know how he got there.5. There are a LOT of stars missing.6. Are these people here because they all have early scenes filming together, and others are not here because they show up later in filming?

Among the missing, based on James Gunn's own cast list of 24 names:

• Idris Elba, who is not playing Deadshot, although that was the idea at one point.• Peter Capaldi• John Cena• Michael Rooker• Taika Waititi• David Dastmalchian• Storm Reid• Alice Braga• Joaquín Cosío• Juan Diego Botto• Tinashe Kajese• Julio Ruiz• Jennifer Holland• Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, although it's not a surprise that she might not be with the main crew

Last week, James Gunn shared a photo with one of the missing parties -- that shot showed Nathan Fillion, David Dastmalchian, Sean Gunn, Flula Borg, Daniela Melchior, Mayling Ng, and Jennifer Holland.

Not Jared Leto, though. Sorry to his fans. Jai Courtney teased The Suicide Squad will be "tonally different" from Suicide Squad. Whatever is ahead, Joel Kinnaman's prep looked pretty uncomfortable. We know who they are playing, but James Gunn plans to wait a while to confirm the other characters. Peter Capaldi teased that he's going to be completely bald and will be doing something with prosthetics.

The Suicide Squad has plenty of time to add things along the way, since production just started for its scheduled release date of August 6, 2021. Meanwhile, DC's Joker -- which is not part of the DCEU, which is why some fans were hoping Jared Leto's Joker could still be in The Suicide Squad -- comes out this coming Friday, October 4.

Gina Carbone

Gina grew up in Massachusetts and California in her own version of The Parent Trap. She went to three different middle schools, four high schools, and three universities -- including half a year in Perth, Western Australia. She currently lives in a small town in Maine, the kind Stephen King regularly sets terrible things in, so this may be the last you hear from her.