‘The Suicide Squad’ Title Was a Joke
By George Robbins
The DCEU is a franchise that has plenty of issues with fans of the DC universe, with many of the films in it being not up to the hopes and standards people want them to be at. Among the films on that list, and to some, the worst offender is ‘Suicide Squad.’ The movie was meant to tell a serious story about a team of villains/anti-heroes being controlled by the government to carry out covert missions. This was not the end product that we got when the film released and the story ended up being a muddled mess due to conflicting tone and a plot that wasn’t solidified. This was revealed recently by the director, David Ayer, to be because of studio interference which caused the film to be anything but the way he wanted it to be.
Of course, the overall critical failure of the first ‘Suicide Squad’ movie didn’t stop the studio from deciding to make a sequel to the first film. One of the things that people don’t pay as much attention to but is equally important is the title of the film. Nobody really expected there to be a title other than ‘Suicide Squad 2’ when it came to the naming convention of this in-the-works sequel. Thus, they eventually arrived at the not-so-impressive, but subtly different title of ‘The Suicide Squad.’ This title for the film was actually one that was eventually decided on by the studio after it was suggested by the director, James Gunn.
The upcoming film is neither a complete reboot nor is it a direct sequel and it is meant to be a standalone film and the 10th film in the DCEU. Since the film is not really meant to be a continuation of the 2016 film, it wasn’t much of a surprise to find out that the film would have a title that doesn’t sequence it in the same continuity. It is strange how they arrived at ‘The Suicide Squad,’ but according to James Gunn, he said it as a joke during a meeting and producers ended up liking the title of the film. Hopefully the film remains under the watchful eye of Gunn throughout its filming and we end up with the entertaining film that we were hoping for with the first ‘Suicide Squad.’