James Gunn reveals that he is receiving threats from Suicide Squad fans if he kills off their fave characters

If you’ve been keeping up to date with the many, many superhero films that are due to be released you might be aware that a new Suicide Squad movie is just months away from being released.

The confusingly named The Suicide Squad is a sequel to 2016’s lambasted Suicide Squad, which introduced the world to new takes on beloved DC characters such as Harley Quinn and the Joker in the blockbuster about a ragtag bunch of supervillains who are made to do effectively impossible missions by the government or face death.

That film didn’t quite live up to expectations for everyone but there are still some die-hard fans of the original and they have been very vocal about the new film, which has been directed by James Gunn, best known for his work on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

Gunn’s version features several new characters including John Cena’s Peacemaker, Idris Elba’s Bloodsport and Sylvester Stallone as King Shark with the likes of Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis returning as their respective roles from the first film.

However, in an interview with Den of Geek, Gunn revealed that fans are already very attached to the original characters and are vocal about them not being killed off in this new film.

Gunn is quoted as saying: “Well, the first thing I had to do was ignore the potential blowback from killing a character. And it really had to do with the structure of the story, especially when we get into the main part of the film with the primary characters. It had to naturally be who was going to die. I told them the story, and I wrote the story in a very natural way where A leads to B, and B leads to C. Being able to tell the story of a character dying, it had to be earned, it had to work, so that’s really it.”

Gunn added that it’s not really a personal choice as to which characters die in the film as he just goes along with the story. “It’s all in relationship to the story that I would kill anyone who the story saw fit to kill. I’m working for the story. I’m just the servant of the story. So whatever the story says is what I’m going to do, no matter what the repercussions are for anything.”

When sharing the interview on Twitter, the 50-year-old director revealed that he receives messages every day on Instagram from fans who threaten to ‘hate crime’ him if their favourite character dies. He did caveat that by saying that he does receive an overwhelming amount of positive comments and doesn’t get “bogged down” with the negative ones.

The Suicide Squad is set for a release in cinemas and on HBO Max on 6th August 2021