"Suicide Squad" Film Gets Start Date

Heat Vision reports that Fury and "End of Watch" director David Ayer's film version of DC Entertainment's "Suicide Squad" comic book for Warner Bros is moving along nicely.

The comic centers on incarcerated villains from the DC universe being recruited as deniable assets by the Government to go on high-risk black ops missions in exchange for more lenient or even commuted sentences. Amanda Waller is in charge of the program.

The studio is said to be in the "final stages of talks" with some familiar names:

Oscar winner Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) is pegged for the role of The Joker--Ryan Gosling was originally up for the role, but he was "unwilling to sign a deal with options for multiple movies" Joker was last portrayed by the late Heath Ledger who gave an Academy Award-winning performance in The Dark Knight. Leto was also in the running to play the lead in Marvel's long gestating Doctor Strange movie--a role that Sherlock and "Star Trek Into Darkness" star Benedict Cumberbatch now circles

"The Wolf of Wall Street" actress Margot Robbie would play Harley Quinn  In the DC mythology Quinn is sidekick to The Clown Prince Of Crime.Robbie has been on the radar to take a role in the film shortly after the project was announced along with  and  British model and actress Cara Delevingne was circling the role as well. The Quinn character was not in the early drafts of the script, but that may change since Ayer is expected to perform re-writes. 

Australian actor Jai Courtney ("A Good Day To Die Hard," "Divergent") is said to be in talks to play is tipped to play Floyd Lawton, aka. the assassin Deadshot. Tom Hardy is eyed for team leader Rick Flag.

Two names not mentioned in the latest update are Will Smith was said to up for the role as Digger Harkness a.k.a. Captain Boomerang and  Jesse Eisenberg who could reprise his role as Lex Luthor in the film. Eisenberg plays Lex in Zack Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice" and if the character shows up in 'Squad' it would link back to the DC Cinematic Universe which the film doesn't really have on the surface.

Dan Lin is producing the pic with Charles Roven from an initial script by Justin Marks.

Pre-production gets underway there in February ahead of filming which will take place at Pinewood Toronto Studios.from mid-April to September of next year. The film has an August 5th 2016 release date planned.

Several of the characters have showed up on The CW's popular Arrow TV series and that trend will continue.