So, as you probably saw earlier today, “The Suicide Squad” writer/director James Gunn was on the Happy Sad Confused show, dumped a little bit on Martin Scorsese and his criticism of superhero films; that’s gonna cause some online drama, but there’s really lots more. One of the big topics that the interviewer host comes upon is what he would want to do next and what kind of superhero property he might want to tackle next, if any.
The gist of all of it? Gunn loves to spotlight the beautiful, forgotten losers of comic books much like he already did with “Guardians Of The Galaxy” (who were basically unknown and unloved at the time he made that movie) and “The Suicide Squad,” especially lesser-known loser characters like Polka Dot Man. This is, after all, a man who turned down “Superman” to do “The Suicide Squad” not because of the property, per se, to hear him tell it, but because of all the unknown lovable losers he could excavate and give their due to (and if you’ve seen the movie like we have, you know Gunn does exactly that).
Gunn is undecided on what he wants to do following the upcoming “Peacemaker” DC spin-off series and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3″ (mostly, see a nugget below). Still, in the conversation, he briefly says he pitched a Ravagers show to Marvel, again, another ragtag group of misfits featured in the ‘Guardians’ franchise. The host asks about Marvel spin-offs and posits: each of ‘Guardians’ characters merits their own Disney+ show or movie, is there talk of any of that, would he oversee them? Is there a show that is at the top of the list he could do?
“Listen being honest; I always thought the Ravagers would be a great show,” he admitted. “Whether that was with Sly Stallone‘s Ravagers or just more in-depth in terms of the [other] pirates and what they’re doing, I was always interested in doing that.” In fact, he pitched that to Marvel’s big cheese.
“I told Kevin Feige that when he first visited set when we were on the Ravagers ship of ‘Guardians 1.’ I said, ‘you should make a ‘Ravagers’ show.’ and he said, ‘If this movie is a hit, you can do whatever you want,'” Gunn laughed, recalling the moment. “Still, no ‘Ravagers’ show, so I don’t know what happened. But the truth is I’m awful busy, so I really don’t know what I [would do]. I wanna do a ‘Peacemaker’ season two, so that’s the only thing that I’m sort of committed to if it happens at this point.”
A “Peacemaker” season two would certainly keep DCEU fans happy, so it’s good to know that’s where Gunn’s heart currently lies, but we shall see. “The Suicide Squad” opens Friday, August 6, in theaters and HBO Max, and you can listen to the full conversation below.