Despite a large dose of aggressive online speculation surrounding the project and the release of a brilliant second trailer, the ‘Suicide Squad’ movie is stubbornly holding onto its secrets, and continuing to raise many unanswered questions.
It’s a testament to David Ayer and his team, trying to produce a movie in a world filled with script leaks, onset photography and intrusive internet journalism, that they can keep anything under wraps.
One of the biggest talking points of the project at this time is who actor Scott Eastwood will be playing. The top two fan theories doing the rounds at the moment are that he’ll either be playing Slade Wilson (Deathstroke), or an undercover Dick Grayson (Nightwing), keeping tabs on the squad for Ben Affleck’s Batman.
Now, I don’t fully buy into either of these ideas. Wilson is an assassin and contract killer, it seems unlikely he’d be working as part of the squad’s government handling team. And although the modern comic incarnation of Grayson is that of an undercover agent, I’m not sure DC would choose to introduce him to their new cinematic universe in this way.
So, realistically, who is Eastwood’s character going to be? He clearly isn’t just an extra, so which DC properties remain to be cast? Well, we here at PTO have come up with a theory, and that is that he’s going to be playing ‘The Unknown Soldier.’
What grounds have we got for this? Well, we read the comics, naturally. In the ‘New 52’ run of Suicide Squad which this film is heavily based on, by issues 19-20, the team’s roster has been decimated, and the Unknown Soldier is drafted in by Amanda Waller in an effort to assert some control over the survivors.
A heavily-scarred US combat veteran, his face is permanently bandaged, and he is set up as the new leader of the team. In issue 20, during an argument with Harley Quinn, she jokingly refers to him as ‘Clint Eastwood’, due to his humorless and grim exterior. Now, wouldn’t it be wonderfully meta if DC went on to cast Clint’s own son in the role?
Eastwood clearly appears to be playing a US soldier, from the pictures of his costume on the set. Maybe the big reason the studio hasn’t named him is quite simple. The character doesn’t have a name. And by the end of the film, he may well have received some pretty heavy duty damage, and could be set up to replace Joel Kinnamen’s Rick Flagg as Waller’s chosen head of the team.
What do you guys reckon? Are we on the mark with Deadshot accuracy? Or madder than a night out on the tiles with the Joker and Harley Quinn?