James Gunn’s Suicide Squad Filming Dates Revealed

The James Gunn-directed The Suicide Squad will head in front of cameras September 23 and wrap January 31 in Atlanta, Georgia, according to a new report from Geeks Worldwide.

When asked if the followup to David Ayer's Suicide Squad is a direct sequel or a reboot, Gunn told ET, "You know, these terms are all so narrow. There are so many terms. It is what it is. You'll see in two years when it comes out." Gunn's Squad is distancing itself from the 2016 film but will retain Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis).

David Dastmalchian (Ant-Man and the Wasp) joins as Polka-Dot Man alongside fellow franchise newcomer Idris Elba (Avengers: Infinity War), who is rumored to be playing classic DC Comics character Bronze Tiger. John Cena (Bumblebee) is rumored for the role of Peacemaker, a.k.a. Christopher Smith.

Producer Peter Safran previously told ComicBook.com the next Squad is "not a sequel."

"It's called The Suicide Squad," Safran said. "It's not Suicide Squad 2. It is not a sequel. I will leave that alone but, yes, it's called The Suicide Squad."

Safran later referred to the project as a "total reboot."

"So it's The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it," he told JoBlo. "It's everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot."

Though details on Gunn's first DC film remain under wraps, the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker hinted his Squad will borrow from the works of John Ostrander.

"I have been an enormous fan of #SuicideSquad in all its @DCComics incarnations - but to me there will always be something special about the #JohnOstrander run," Gunn wrote in an April Instagram post. "Black ops military tales with disposable, often forgotten super villains?! Pure perfection."

Warner Bros. has set The Suicide Squad for August 6, 2021.