Jaume Collet-Serra, the director behind movies like The Shallows and Liam Neesons vehicle Non-Stop, is now the front-runner to direct the upcoming sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.
Last we heard, Mel Gibson was one of the studio’s top picks, but production delays forced Gibson to move on.
Suicide Squad was huge
Despite a plot confused by reshoots and edits, Suicide Squad was set from the very beginning to get a second installment. The movie resulted in a $745 million haul worldwide for Warner Bros., ahead of movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and even stuff like The Hunger Games.
Suicide Squad, set in the DC Extended Universe alongside Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman, and Man of Steel, centers on characters Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) as criminals coerced into taking on dangerous missions for the government. The film was a critical failure, but its success at the box office suggests it did better with audiences. Robbie and Smith are both said to be returning for the sequel.
The studio has had difficulty placing directors with its upcoming DCEU movies. Zack Snyder stepped down from Justice League, Ben Affleck from The Batman, and The Flash has had about a million names attached to it. The first Suicide Squad was directed by David Ayer, but conflicts of vision and studio interference changed the direction of the movie. The good news is that along with the new director, the sequel has a new treatment, this time penned by Zak Penn, who wrote the script for the upcoming Ready Player One and worked on the Avengers movie with Joss Whedon.
Suicide Squad‘s sequel is set to start shooting in mid-2018, with a release sometime the year after.