James Gunn Calls The Suicide Squad “The Ultimate All-Time Comic Book Movie”

DC fans are only two weeks away from finally getting to see The Suicide Squad, which was helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy director, James Gunn. Yesterday, Gunn paid a visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live alongside Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) and John Cena (Peacemaker). The trio clearly had a fun time with Cena showing up in his Peacemaker costume and Gunn sharing some great stories about Robbie on set. During the chat, Gunn also teased that his version of The Suicide Squad is “the ultimate all-time comic book movie.”

“Really, I just wanted to do the ultimate all-time comic book movie, and create The Suicide Squad based on one of my favorite books of all time by John Ostrander about a group of really crappy supervillains being used as fodder by the US government for Black Ops, putting them out on suicide visits where most of them die. This group of Suicide Squad members goes to Corto Maltese, a fictional island off the coast of Argentina, to try to stop an insurrection,” Gunn explained.

While promoting The Suicide Squad, Gunn has made it clear that you don’t want to get too attached to all of the characters. In fact, he even joked about an “overly optimistic” death doll he saw online. Recently, Gunn spoke with Den of Geek and said, “The first thing I had to do was ignore the potential blowback from killing a character.” He also revealed on Twitter that he constantly gets threats over potential character deaths. “This morning on IG: ‘This is a threat. If you kill (character name redacted) I will hatecrime you.’ Every. Single. Day,” Gunn wrote.

The Suicide Squad‘s cast includes Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as John Economos and King Shark (on-set reference), Sylvester Stallone as the voice of King Shark, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, John Cena as Peacemaker, Michael Rooker as Savant, Flula Borg as Javelin, Peter Capaldi as Thinker, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Mayling Ng as Mongal, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Sean Gunn as Weasel, Joaquin Cosio as General Mateo Suarez, Juan Diego Botto as Luna, Storm Reid as Tyla, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt, and Taika Waititi in an unknown role.

The Suicide Squad is scheduled to hit theaters and HBO Max on August 6th.