Thursday, January 22, 2015

Jake Gyllenhaal Nixes "Suicide Squad" Lead

Variety reports that Jake Gyllenhaal has passed on replacing Tom Hardy as team leader Rick Flag in Fury and "End of Watch" director David Ayer's film version of DC Entertainment's "Suicide Squad" comic book over at Warner Bros.


The official reasons given for Tom's exit was due to scheduling conflicts  with the currently filming Alejandro González Iñárritu frontier drama "The Revenant" co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio The shoot is now running long. And then there are his press commitments for "Mad Max: Fury Road" will have him busy throughout May, colliding with the filming on 'Squad'.

Latino Review said that Hardy backed out after learning about some "drastic changes to his character" in the script. The various actors cast in the film reportedly didn't get the script before signing on, and when he did he didn't like it. Even so, he apparently left the project on amicable terms.

Although Gyllenhaal previously worked with Ayer on "End of Watch" he decided to walk away. No word yet on who may take on the role. Stay Tuned...

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 expected to perform 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.

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