'Suicide Squad 2' Will Be More Grounded According to Joel Kinnaman

You can argue that Suicide Squad was a fun DC supervillain romp for most of its runtime, but there's virtually no one in existence who has ever argued that third act battle with Enchantress and her brother Incubus was fun, well-done, or anything but a total misfire. So maybe it's a good thing that Suicide Squad star Joel Kinnaman is now assuring DC Fans that Suicide Squad 2 will be something very different from that.

During an interview with Yahoo UK for his upcoming Netflix series Altered Carbon, Kinnaman has surprisingly candid answers to the question of where Suicide Squad went wrong ("The Third Act!") and offered the olive branch promise that the sequel won't make the same mistake:

"It was a great set-up, great characters. I think when we do the second one I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a more grounded version of the film. The characters are so extreme it could be more effective if we saw less sorcery. I think the characters become more extreme if you see them in conjunction with real people."

Kinnaman is hitting on the nail of what has traditionally made Suicide Squad comics and storylines exciting. Having a hard-boiled crime story that just so happens to feature larger-than-life supervillain characters are the only ingredients you need for a great Task Force X story - that, and proper use of The Joker as a prominent antagonist.

DC Films and Warner Bros. had to work especially hard to muck up that easy formula - but managed to do it by throwing more money and special effects onto a ridiculous supernatural sub-plot. The final irony? In the time since Suicide Squad, DC's supernatural blockbuster Justice League Dark is stalled in development.

Suicide Squad 2 is reportedly going to begin production this fall. Along with Kinnaman, Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto are all returning. The Accountant director Gavin O'Connor is writing and directing the sequel instead of David Ayer.