Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Smith & Robbie Put "Suicide Squad" Into "Focus"

 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.

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.

 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.

There is noise 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.

 Ayer performed  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.


 Out doing promotion for the February 27th heist thriller "Focus," Smith talked with USA Today and offered insight as to the work being done:

"We've still got to get it right. [Ayer] turned the screenplay in before Christmas. What happens is Hollywood shuts down. But he was still working and he wanted to (start shooting) April 13th. So it takes a couple weeks to gear back up at the top of the year and people have taken (other) movies. He's moving really quickly."

Robbie, who plays the female lead in "Focus," with Smith discussed "Squad:

"This happens all the time. People act like, 'Oh my god, the movie must be ending!' It's just the deal with movies. A lot of the characters haven't been portrayed before so it's a pretty big undertaking. And it's a big undertaking for the people who are going to play the characters who have been played, like the Joker. It's big shoes to fill. It's almost impossible to get a movie all together when there are two main cast members, let alone an ensemble cast with everyone's schedules. It's crazy if it works out."

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