Last week, it was reported that Will Smith was forced to drop out of the Suicide Squad sequel (titled The Suicide Squad) owing to some scheduling conflicts, but Warner Bros has been hot on finding his replacement.
According to THR, Idris Elba is stepping in to save the day, and is set to take on the role of Deadshot in place of Smith.
The Suicide Squad has a script written by Guardians Of The Galaxy‘s James Gunn but is yet to find a director. It is believed that Gunn is centring the story around characters that didn’t appear in the first Suicide Squad film. However, there will be a few exceptions like Deadshot, Harley Quinn as played by Margot Robbie and Rick Flagg, who was played by Joel Kinnaman in the first film, but Kinnaman is not expected to return for the sequel.
Sources say that Elba was the only choice for Deadshot for both Gunn and the studio, with Elba entering into talks pretty much as soon as Smith got his coat on and let the door swing shut behind him. Though sources didn’t say it quite in those words.
If you somehow don’t know of Idris Elba, he is famous for roles like Roland in The Dark Tower, Janek in Prometheus, Stacker Pentecost in Pacific Rim, Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell in The Wire, Krall in Star Trek Beyond, DCI John Luther in Luther, and Heimdall in a handful of the MCU films.
The Suicide Squad is set to hit cinemas on 6 August 2021. Get all the latest sci-fi news with every issue of SciFiNow.