How The Characters Were Chosen For Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad director David Ayer wanted characters that complemented each other

The very nature of Suicide Squad means it has often had a rotating roster. Some characters actually get out, plenty others die, etc. And Suicide Squad also isn’t a new comic, it’s been around in it’s modern form since the late 80s and can actually be traced back to the 1950s. So a lot of a different villains have been conscripted to perform missions for the government virtually guaranteed to get them killed over the decades.

So how did Suicide Squad director David Ayer decide who was going to make up the first movie version of Task Force X? He could’ve simply pulled the most current roster, but he didn’t do that, picking a pretty wide variety of characters, some who had never previously been affiliated with the Suicide Squad. Ayer explains how he chose what characters he wanted in the film:

"You almost have to go back to the beginnings and look at Kane’s Batman and look at the origins of Superman, and work your way through the canon and how it’s evolved as society has changed. For me it was going into the original suicide Squad which is very interesting because it’s a product of kind of a bi-polar world. These guys were fighting the Russians. It was very 80’s, you know, and I’m a child of the 80’s. I totally understood where they’re coming from. You can really see how, in today’s world, where the government sometimes engages in murky activities to solve problems and make us safe. Where you could sort of see something like this happening and how would it happen today.It’s like building a family, you just look for who is going to be complementary to each other. This is kind of a new venture and it’s a lot of characters to introduce. You’re looking for that team and that family with interlocking skills that will complement everybody else’s.It’s crazy how many characters there are. They keep killing them all!. That’s the beauty of this [film] too, is no one is safe. No matter who is in the movie, they’re not safe. Anything can happen."

Next: Batman Seen From Villains' POV In Suicide Squad

I really hope that it’s true that no one’s safe. I mean sure, they’ll probably kill Slipknot, who cares about him. But knockoff at least one or two major characters who don’t need to necessarily be in another film like Killer Croc or Deadshot. We’ll find out if indeed no one is safe when Suicide Squad comes out August 5th.

h/t Comicbook.com