The Suicide Squad: Starro Smashes Free in New Movie Clip

150-foot alien starfish Starro bursts free to conquer the DC Extended Universe in an exclusive clip from The Suicide Squad. The new movie from Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn sends another squad of expendable supervillains to the dictator-controlled island nation of Corto Maltese, where Task Force X is on a shady suicide mission from A.R.G.U.S. director Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). In ComicBook's clip from The Suicide Squad, playing in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and the rest of the Squad gets an up-close look at "Project Starfish":

"I wanted a major DC villain that is a major DC villain that people wouldn't expect to be in a movie," the first-time DC Films director said about the Justice League villain during a press event attended by ComicBook. "I've always loved Starro. I mean, as a kid, I found Starro completely terrifying. The idea of this giant starfish with one big guy that shoots these things out of him that take over people's brains, like those old pictures with Superman with him on his face. Always scared the shit out of me."

Bringing the mind-controlling creature into The Suicide Squad was "about taking something that was completely ridiculous [and] putting him in a setting that is the gritty streets of Cologne, Panama, and then allowing him to do his scary business," Gunn said. "But he's also completely outrageous. And so, that mix of things appealed to my aesthetic."

Starro was always part of Gunn's "completely bonkers bananas crazy" pitch for The Suicide Squad, which producer Peter Safran revealed is exactly the movie Warner Bros. brought to screen.

"Literally, to the characters involved, who died, who the adversaries were, nothing changed. James knew exactly the movie that he wanted to make, and that is the movie that he delivered," Safran recently told the Deadline podcast. "I think that's why people have responded so beautifully to it, both critics and audiences alike. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be inside the head of James Gunn, this movie answers that question for you because it is the unfiltered vision of what he wanted to do. It's exactly his movie."

Starring Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Sylvester Stallone, and Viola Davis, The Suicide Squad releases in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6.