The Suicide Squad: Nathan Fillion’s Role Rumored To Be Revealed

Charles Murphy, known for his usually-accurate “scoops” on That Hashtag Show, took to Twitter today to verify almost all of a recent report naming several of the minor character who will appear in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Chief among these was the idea that Gunn regular Nathan Fillion will play Arm-Fall-Off-Boy in the film, which is currently in the early stages of production. Murphy also (without calling them out one by one) said he could confirm a number of other rumored bits of casting revealed on The Weekly Planet Podcast (seen above), although he stopped short of saying that he knew the identity of Idris Elba’s character.

Since Elba is one of the film’s major characters and the others name-dropped are likely to be glorified cameos in the vein of what Gunn did with Sylvester Stallone’s Starhawk and his gang of toughs in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, it stands to reason that loose-lipped set spies would feel a little less on-the-spot revealing the latter than the former.

Gunn has not yet confirmed almost any casting from the film, allowing speculation to run wild. What most fans have taken away from it so far is that The Suicide Squad will differentiate itself from David Ayer’s Suicide Squad in part by featuring a group of characters no casual fan has ever heard of, as opposed to Ayer’s batch of reasonably well-known (but still mostly B-list) villains. That has made casting rumors sound a little crazy from time to time, with names like Ratcatcher and Peacemaker floating around. Some of those names, though, will probably not become universally recognized the way Groot and Drax have under Gunn’s stewardship, since the first thing the director said upon revealing a cast list earlier this year was “don’t get too attached.” The Suicide Squad may not have lived up to the promise of its moniker and concept in the first movie, but it seems like that’s part of Gunn’s plan.

Per the report, Sean Gunn is set to play Weasel in the film, Flula Borg is Javelin, Pete Davidson is Blackguard, Michael Rooker is Savant, Mayling Ng is Mongal, and Elba is Vigilante, a cahracter who just recently wrapped a run on Arrow.

Arm-Fall-Off Boy started as a one-off character — one of the first Legion fo Super-Heroes rejects. He has the ability to remove his limbs and use them as weapons. A post-Zero Hour reinvention of the character, named Splitter, appeared briefly in the ’90s but lacked the charm of the original.

Gunn recently confirmed his full cast, including returning Suicide Squad stars Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag) and Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang) alongside franchise newcomers Idris Elba, Michael Rooker, Peter Capaldi, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, David Dastmalchian, Storm Reid, Taika Waititi and John Cena. Other cast additions include Pete Davidson, Juan Diego Botto, Joaquin Cosio, Flula Borg, Tinashe Kajese, Jennifer Holland, Julio Ruiz, Alice Braga, Steve Agee and Daniela Melchior.

Kinnaman, for his part, chimed in on the tooth-brushing image to say, “I like my direction at close range so I appreciate the gesture.”

Gunn most recently shared a new look at his cast on Instagram, two days after initiating filming on his first film set in the DC Universe.

“First of all, we don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 ’cause it’s a total reboot,” producer Peter Safran previously told JoBlo when asked about the connection between Gunn’s film and its David Ayer-directed predecessor. “So it’s The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it. 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.”

Warner Bros. opens The Suicide Squad August 6, 2021.