From the off, James Gunn promised fans that The Suicide Squad would live up to the team’s name and not all of Task Force X would survive the movie. Now that it’s here, we can say this is 100% accurate, as only a handful of the film’s characters are still standing by the end credits. But, in Gunn’s original plans, one of those surviving villains bit the bullet, while another deceased squad member made it out alive.
Spoilers incoming… So the surviving characters are Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniella Melchior) and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone). While speaking to Variety, Gunn was asked whether he ever considered killing off either Harley or Bloodsport, which he revealed he never did. However, in his first draft, Ratcatcher died in place of Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian).
“No, that never happened But there was a change,” Gunn explained. The original ending that I pitched, one main character died and one main character did not die. And the main character who died was was Ratcatcher 2. She was so sweet, I just felt like it was just too dark. Not that we don’t love Polka Dot Man. We do. I just couldn’t [kill Ratcatcher 2]. So I relented.”
Gunn definitely made the right call on that one. There are only a couple of morally good characters in this movie and one of them – namely, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) – already dies so Ratcatcher had to make it through. What’s more, Polka-Dot Man’s death provided one of the sequel’s most shocking and most heartbreaking moments – as he finally gets to be a superhero… only to get squished by Starro moments later.
It’s unsurprising that Gunn never considered writing out either Harley or Bloodsport. Robbie is one of the leading heroes of the DCEU while Elba’s made clear that he’s willing to come back as his sharp-shooting supervillain. It’s unclear where we’ll see those two next, though John Cena’s Peacemaker will return in his own self-titled series, hitting streaming sometime next year. In the meantime, The Suicide Squad is in cinemas and on HBO Max now.
