More "Suicide Squad" Casting Rumors

Despite those casting woes for Fury and "End of Watch" director David Ayer's film version of DC Entertainment's "Suicide Squad" comic book over at Warner Bros. He isn't letting it get the better of him.

On Friday, Ayer tweeted a photo of his office showing that he's in the middle of drafting the script and creating storyboards for the movie.

#writing pic.twitter.com/oZNvAKEh7Q
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) January 23, 2015

Meantime over the weekend, Joblo posted some new casting rumors for the pic. Sources say Ed Harris and Max Martini ("Pacific Rim") are under consideration to play the father of Rick Flag, while Karl Urban has been added as a potential candidate to play Rick. Urban joins former "The Walking Dead" co-star Jon Bernthal and Joel Edgerton ("The Great Gatsby") who potentially could fill that void left after Jake Gyllenhaal passed on replacing Tom Hardy as team leader Flagg. Bernthal previously worked with Ayer on "Fury" and was originally suggested for the role last year before Hardy was cast.

They also indicate that The Thinker will also be in the film and Geoffrey Rush has already apparently passed on the role. On top of that,Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) joins  Joe Manganiello (“True Blood,” Magic Mike Xxl) as a potential candidate for the role of Deathstroke- a hired assassin competing with the Suicide Squad in the movie.

The comic created by John Ostrander 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 ("The Help" and "How to Get Away with Murder" star Viola Davis) a prison warden and government agent is in charge of the program.

Davis beat out both Oprah Winfrey and Octavia Spencer for the Waller role.

Oscar winner Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) is playing 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 has.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" actress Margot Robbie will 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. The Quinn character was not in the early drafts of the script.

British model and actress Cara Delevingne was circling the role as well--but instead she will play
a sorceress named Enchantress.

Will Smith is tipped to play Floyd Lawton, aka. the assassin Deadshot. Australian actor Jai Courtney ("A Good Day To Die Hard," "Divergent") lands the role of Digger Harkness a.k.a. Captain Boomerang.

 Despite earlier reports, Jesse Eisenberg is not part of the official cast, but that doesn't rule out a potential cameo appearance as Lex Luthor Eisenberg plays Lex in Zack Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice"

Ayer is performing re-writes of an initial script by Justin Marks.

Dan Lin is producing the pic with Charles Roven.

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