Suicide Squad 2016: What Do We Know?

While not a lot is known about director David Ayer's Suicide Squad project at Warner Bros., the [...]

While not a lot is known about director David Ayer's Suicide Squad project at Warner Bros., the film is one that we've at least known about for a while, as opposed to some of them that fairly blindsided fans when WB CEO Kevin Tsujihara announced the company's slate today.

There have been a lot of rumors swirling around this film for a while, though, and there are some fairly safe assessments that can be made.

So...what have we got?

Well, first of all, it's likely to be released on August 5, 2016. Because it will be coming on the heels of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and before most of the solo films, it seems likely the villains in the Squad will not relate directly to the plot of the other DC films -- although Batman, having been secretly operating for years, may have put some of them away.

Four A-list stars are in talks to join Suicide Squad as an ensemble, Tsujihara said. That's led a number of reports to assume it will be an action orgy on the order of The Expendables

Update: Those A-listers are reportedly Will Smith, Tom Hardy, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Tsujihara called it "a gritty story of a team of supervillains who take on black ops missions for the U.S. government," which doesn't tell us much except that they're staying fairly close to the source material on the basic premise. Of course, Iterations of the Squad have recently popped up in the Arkham games, in the film Batman: Assault on Arkham and on Arrow. Deadshot and Bronze Tiger seem like a given considering that they've been featured fairly heavily in the existing other-media interpretations of the Squad, as is Amanda Waller. Other than that -- who knows?

Rumors have said that Harley Quinn -- who leads the team in the comics but who doesn't appear in Arrow's version -- may not appear in the Suicide Squad movie. Older rumors had held that Suicide Squad was one of a number of low- to mid-budget actioners based on DC properties that Warners was considering to expand the DC Cinematic Universe with minimal financial risk...but that seems unlikely when you're told they're chasing multiple A-list actors for the Squad.

Since the Green Lantern film is a reboot, don't expect Angela Basset back as Waller, either; is it too much to ask for Pamela Grier or CCH Pounder?

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