Will The Suicide Squad Be Delayed? Here’s What James Gunn Said

Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad

Not only have numerous completed movies been delayed as of late because a particular virus running rampant across the world, but movies that were in the midst of production have had to indefinitely pause their operations. Luckily for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, it completed filming right before this craziness started.

As such, James Gunn recently revealed that as things stand now, The Suicide Squad will not be delayed, saying:

See more

The Twitter user who posed the original question clarified in a follow-up tweet that he was referring to the “other Marvel releases,” but then asked James Gunn that if The Suicide Squad was delayed, would that mean his team would have more time to “polish” it. Gunn responded that that only reason The Suicide Squad would need to be delayed is for VFX reasons, which doesn’t appear to be an issue right now.

So there you have it, The Suicide Squad is still on track for its August 2021 release. That said, as we’ve seen over the last month, sometimes the unexpected can occur and put a damper on plans. So there’s a chance that something could happen down the line that necessitates The Suicide Squad being pushed back, but for now, James Gunn doesn’t anticipate it arriving later than expected.

A Suicide Squad sequel has been in development since months before Task Force X’s first cinematic adventure came out in summer 2016, with filmmakers like Jaume Collet-Serra and Gavin O’Connor being eyed or tapped to helm the next installment. By the beginning of 2019, James Gunn, having been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 the previous summer (though Disney brought him for the threequel in March 2019), was officially hired to write and direct The Suicide Squad.

The Suicide Squad began principal photography last September and wrapped things up in late February. Like many superhero movies and blockbusters, it’s possible some time has been set aside for reshoots, but James Gunn and his team are fortunate that they wrapped up the main bulk of shooting right before so many other highly-anticipated movies, including fellow DC entry The Batman, had to turn off their cameras.

While it still hasn’t been clarified if The Suicide Squad is a direct sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad, a reboot or something in between, we will reunite with some familiar faces in it. Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman are all back as Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Amanda Waller and Rick Flag, respectively.

As for new faces, in addition to David Dstmalchian playing Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melchior playing Ratcatcher and Steve Agee playing King Shark, we also have Idris Elba, John Cena, Storm Reid, Flula Borg, Nathan Fillion, Peter Capaldi, Pete Davidson, Alice Braga, Sean Gunn, Michael Rooker, Taika Waititi, Joaquín Cosío, Mayling Ng, Juan Diego Botto, Tinashe Kajese, Julio Ruiz and Jennifer Holland cast in undisclosed roles. Initially the plan was for Elba to replace Will Smith as Deadshot, but it was later decided to have the Luther star play a different character instead.

The Suicide Squad charges into theaters on August 6, 2021. Be sure to look through our DC movies guide to learn what other projects from this superhero franchise are on the way.

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.