James Gunn Admitted That Amanda Waller is the Reason He Loved ‘Suicide Squad’
By George Robbins
The DC Extended Universe, otherwise abbreviated as the DCEU, is a shared universe which sees some of DC’s most famous heroes sharing a cinematic universe. This does not mean that every DC film that releases is actually a DCEU film but a majority of them are and this is something that some fans are concerned about. For instance, building a strong universe isn’t so much about just having the characters there, but also about building up the universe. Much of the DCEU thus far has done anything but properly build up the shared universe as we don’t really know how they got to the point they are at without knowing more about the comics. The only films to serve as origin films thus far are ‘Wonder Woman‘ and ‘Man of Steel’ as the other films only show us bits of each character’s background.
Even though they only show a little bit of Batman’s background, they don’t need to show an entire film about his origin again. We have had enough films about Batman to last us awhile and that just wouldn’t contribute to the story. Although ‘Aquaman’ gave us some background on the character, we really don’t know as much about him as some other characters. On top of them, we have The Flash and Cyborg who both didn’t really have any kind of origin movies to go off and were thrown right into the mix just like Aquaman. Although their origins were mentioned, we didn’t really get to see much of a story for those characters. This is what became one of the biggest criticisms for the DCEU, there is no build up.
It is hard not to compare the DCEU to the MCU considering that they were trying to match the MCU’s success. What we ended up with was a movie timeline that just ended up confusing everyone who went to go see the movies. One movie that went the farthest out of the way to confuse people was ‘Suicide Squad.’ The story of the film brings together a bunch of villains into one group who are then forced into working for the government. It is kind of okay to not really have much background on them as we are given background for the more important characters, but the way the film plays out has caused a lot of backlash. According to director David Ayer, the movie was meant to be different but studio interference resulted in it having a story that just seemed “off.”
Despite its shortcomings, ‘Suicide Squad’ was still a very interesting concept that was adapted from the comic series of the same name. This group was put together by government agent Amanda Waller who had those villains put under her thumb by putting bombs on them. Thus we find out just how far her character is willing to go to get the results she wants. Waller actually ended up being one of the reasons why director James Gunn came onto the newest project ‘The Suicide Squad.’ He loved how the character was represented in the comics and the concept she put together and how it worked. He also loved her anti-hero-like nature and felt that her ruthless nature was necessary given the content of the story. It seems like Gunn genuinely cares about doing the source material justice, so here’s to hoping it works out.