SUICIDE SQUAD: Karl Urban Up For Rick Flag, Ed Harris Could Join, and More
David Ayer's Suicide Squad is quickly becoming one of the most talked-about movies of the year, and it doesn't even open until 2016. We've already pointed out how this is a very important project for Warner Bros. and DC to get right in the wake of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and today has brought a whole new round of rumors for us to mull over.
The studio is on the hunt to fill one of the lead roles, since Tom Hardy and Jake Gyllenhaal have both passed on playing Rick Flag. Last week, we heard that Joel Edgerton and Jon Bernthal were being eyed as possible replacements, but now JoBlo has an unconfirmed rumor that Star Trek's Karl Urban is in the mix for the role as well. Urban was just mentioned as a contender for a role in Aquaman, but that deal depends on which script the studio ends up choosing for that film, so as of now, Urban is still being looked at for Suicide Squad.
The role of Rick Flag that everyone is talking about is actually Rick Flag Jr. The character's father, Rick Flag Sr., is going to appear in the film as well, and JoBlo says Ed Harris and Max Martini (Pacific Rim) are being eyed for that particular part. (Harris would be great here, and it would give the movie even more star power.) As for Gary Sinise, who was rumored to have scored an unknown role in the film last week? They claim he's up for the role of General Sam Lane, Lois Lane's father. There's obvious crossover potential for that character in any project involving Amy Adams' Lois and Henry Cavill's Superman. In addition, there's a character named Thinker that will appear in this movie, and since Geoffrey Rush has reportedly turned it down, that part is up for grabs.
Their report also says that Joe Manganiello is indeed the first choice to play the assassin Deathstroke, but that Terminator Genisys and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes star Jason Clarke is also on the list of contenders. And there's a brief update about Jared Leto's Joker: he'll apparently be "scarred all over his body because of his battles with Batman," and he always "plays mind games with people and twists [their] minds." Sounds pretty Joker-esque to me. The character is compared to Hannibal Lecter, and "everyone is afraid of him," so - and this is just me speculating here - maybe the fact that he's contained for most of the movie will give Leto a chance to put his own stamp on the character following Heath Ledger's iconic performance in The Dark Knight.
Ayer has reportedly been trying to "get his own people" involved, and if that's true, that means Martini and Manganiello have a better shot at scoring their respective parts because they've worked with the director before. We'll keep you posted with more when we hear it.