Warner Bros. has made it clear that they are bringing a roster of DC Comics’ themed films to theaters over the next five years or more. Beyond the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the inevitable Justice League film, the characters that will be showing up at the movies, has been educated speculation at best. Well WB has made their next move on the chess board.

According to Variety, WB has given the greenlight to a Suicide Squad movie. Over the past couple of years, DC Entertainment has been peppering Suicide Squad stories in the comics, animated movies, such as Assault on Arkham (check out the awesome podcast review from Epicomcast), and in live-action on Arrow. Well. their market test seems to have gone well, because they have commissioned a script from Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) to be produced by Dan Lin (The Lego Movie). It’s reported that they are in active negotiations with director David Ayer (End of Watch), whose upcoming film Fury is enjoying an incredible amount of positive buzz.

Suicide Squad is a team of DC villains who are wrangled together by Amanda Waller to go on covert missions for the government. In return they will get reprieve from some of their past wrongdoings, the bad side is that these missions mean almost certain death. The team has been a rotating roster over the course of it’s existence. However, the most recent incarnation has featured such well known characters as Deadshot and Harley Quinn. These villains are more scaled down and most (King Shark aside) could be put in a more realistic setting. By going after Ayer, WB is getting an up and coming director with a talent for scripts. (He is the writer of Training Day.) His gritty urban dramas and hyper-realistic sense of warfare could be well matched with the material.

It can’t go without saying that this is not the first super villain team being developed for the screen. Sony is actively developing their Sinister Six film for a 2016 release. However, the Suicide Squad film has a nice headstart, due to there being so much rich source material already written. While the Sinister Six is decades old, their existence in the comics is typically to take down Spider-Man. The Suicide Squad are mission based and don’t always cross paths with the Dark Knight. However, it does seem possible from the report, that we could see some of these characters cross over into other DC films.

This will also be the opportunity to put Harley Quinn on the big screen. Her popularity has risen to the same stature of any member of Batman’s rogues gallery. In fact, she seems the most likely for crossovers into other films, since she can easily fill the Joker wildcard character void.

So are you ready for the Suicide Squad? Who would you put on the roster? Let us know on the comment boards,  and !

Source: Variety