Sorry folks, it looks like you won’t be seeing Floyd Lawton take another contract in Suicide Squad 2. Will Smith, who introduced us to the cinematic version of the character, won’t be coming back. While the script was one of the weakest parts of the first film, Deadshot himself was one of the best parts of the film.

Sure, we’ve seen some key actors stay and others leave before. But Smith is not leaving for the reasons that Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill (…maybe) exited. Scheduling conflicts contributed to this parting of ways. More on the report below.

Variety says that even though Smith is exiting, Warner Bros. understood the reasoning and the departure was made with no ill will.

This means James Gunn, who is in talks to direct, will have to take this change into consideration. But we don’t even know if Deadshot is in the script. And if he is, he will obviously have to recast the role. However, the studio never confirmed if Smith would be returning. There was even a point in time when Margot Robbie, who plays Harley Quinn, was not coming back because of her commitments to other films like Birds of Prey. But now it is looking like she will be back.

But there is a “ticking clock” that needs to be factored into this as Gunn expects to start shooting later this fall for a 2021 release.

Suicide Squad ended up having a cumulative box office gross of $747.8 million worldwide. Not bad for a film that was eviscerated by critics. However, it certainly wasn’t enough to convince WB to move forward quickly with a sequel. Of course, that all changed when the studio put in some new leadership. Now their focus is on new heroes and new actors taking the place of their predecessors. We will just have to wait to see how connected these films are to the DCEU and now long before we will get to see another Justice League film.

One of the biggest moves that WB did was to bring in James Gunn to write and possibly direct Suicide Squad 2. Gunn was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after his “bad joke” tweets were revealed. Although the director had already apologized for said tweets, Disney stood by the decision. This obviously gave WB the green light to approach the filmmaker to at least write the Suicide Squad 2 script.

Suicide Squad 2 will hit theaters on August 6, 2021.

[Source: Variety]