Suicide Squad 2 Director Reportedly Exited Over Birds of Prey Story
Guardians of the Galaxy‘s James Gunn has been brought on board to pen and possibly direct Suicide Squad 2 for Warner Bros., which must mean the film’s previous hire Gavin O’Connor is out.
According to Justin Kroll of Variety, O’Connor — who initially joined the project a little over a year ago — opted to exit Suicide Squad 2 following frustrations he had with the studio. O’Connor had been hired to both write and direct the film and was hard at work on the project for the past year. Unfortunately, during that time, Warner Bros. decided to fast track Birds of Prey, another Margot Robbie-led film, which is said to have shared a similar plot with O’Connor’s script — so much so that the projects ended up almost “identical.”
RELATED: James Gunn Is Writing Warner Bros.’ Suicide Squad Sequel
On the Gavin O'Connor front in relation to SS2, hearing the story he had for the sequel ended up almost being identical to the BIRDS OF PREY story and when that film was given the go ahead to go before SQUAD 2, O'Connor grew frustrated and fell off project to do HAS BEEN instead
— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) October 9, 2018
Suicide Squad 2 has suffered many setbacks since it was initially announced. The first film, which was a critical dud, managed to perform well at the box office and led to Warner Bros.’ decision to “fast track” a sequel. However, following Justice League‘s poor box office performance, the studio’s initial release schedule shifted quite a bit and the the sequel no longer became a priority. Birds of Prey, on the other hand, did.
RELATED: Suicide Squad 2: Dave Bautista Wants to Join James Gunn on Film
It’s unclear just how the two projects would have been identical. While casting is beginning to amp up on Birds of Prey, little information has been revealed outside of the fact that Harley and her crew will need to save Cassandra Cain from Black Mask.
There is currently no release date for Suicide Squad 2.
