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07th Mar 2019

Will Smith’s replacement as Deadshot in Suicide Squad is the perfect choice

Rory Cashin

We are 100% behind this

There were exactly two good things about the otherwise awful Suicide Squad movie.

One was Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and the other was Will Smith as Deadshot.

Both had a lot of fun with their charismatic villainous roles, and both were probably big reasons why, despite being mostly kinda crap, the movie went on to make over $745 million at the box office.

While Robbie is apparently hanging around in the role for a while (especially since she has her own sorta-spin-off, Birds Of Prey, out in February 2020), it has been confirmed that Will Smith won’t be back.

Neither will the first movie’s writer/director David Ayer – both he and Big Willie are off making Bright 2 for Netflix instead – and in his place is apparently James Gunn, now freed up to direct DC movies having being dropped by Marvel before he got to finish his Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy.

With production of The Suicide Squad set to begin this September, casting has begun to fill out the ranks again, and Variety are reporting that none other than Idris Elba has been picked as the new Deadshot.

Fans of the MCU will know that Elba has also been recently released from his Marvel role of Heimdall, following the events of Avengers: Infinity War, and if you can think of anyone cooler and more capable of replacing Will Smith in the role of a wise-cracking assassin, we’re all ears.

The 46-year-old Elba is currently leaning into his new-found action-man persona, between this, the upcoming Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, as well submarine thriller Deeper with the director of Everest at the helm. Not that he’s going just action, though, as he’ll also be one of the leading players in the upcoming musical and obvious awards-magnet Cats.

So we’ve got lots of Idris to look forward to.

The Suicide Squad is due for release in August 2021.