60 Fun Facts About Suicide Squad

In the 2016 Suicide Squad, which stuffed toy does the team's boomerang-throwing thief carry around with him?

A pink unicorn: Waller's file on the hard-drinking robber lists pink unicorns as a fetish, and when his gear is handed back he takes a plush one along on the squad's mission.

Which film started the DC Extended Universe that Suicide Squad joined?

Man of Steel launched the series and Suicide Squad came third, opening on a world that has just lost Superman: that loss is Amanda Waller's whole argument for a squad of expendable villains.

In the 2016 film Suicide Squad, what is the official name of the team Amanda Waller assembles?

Task Force X is the name the government signs off on; 'suicide squad' is Deadshot's sour joke when Waller tells the recruits that if they fail the mission, they die.

Which actor plays Griggs, the bullying guard captain, in the 2016 Suicide Squad?

Ike Barinholtz's Griggs torments the inmates until the Joker's men grab him and turn him into their man on the inside; 'You're so screwed,' Harley tells him when he hands her the Joker's phone.

In the 2016 film Suicide Squad, what is the name of the prison the team is recruited from?

Belle Reve is a black site in a Louisiana swamp, and one of the guards feeding Killer Croc there is the film's own writer-director, in a cameo that is easy to miss.

Dr. June Moone, the archaeologist possessed by Enchantress, is played by whom?

Cara Delevingne plays both halves: archaeologist June Moone wanders into the wrong cave and opens a container she shouldn't, and the witch Enchantress takes over her body.

What does Waller use to control Enchantress?

Her magical heart was dug out of the cave where the witch surfaced, and whoever holds it controls her; Flag finally crushes it to kill her.

Which fictional metropolis does Enchantress conquer?

Midway City falls when she turns its people into an army of monsters and summons her brother there to destroy mankind.

What is the name of Enchantress's brother?

Incubus has no body of his own at first: his sister summons him and he possesses a man in a subway station; Alain Chanoine plays him.

Which Suicide Squad member is killed early in the 2016 film while trying to escape?

Slipknot runs because a teammate convinces him Waller's threat is only mind games, and Flag kills him on the spot.

What is Deadshot's real name?

Floyd Lawton, Will Smith's hitman, is by Waller's file the most wanted assassin in the world, and takes her deal to get back to his daughter Zoe.

Will Smith chose Suicide Squad over appearing in which sequel that was offered at the same time?

Independence Day: Resurgence lost out because, Smith said, he wanted to go forward rather than keep 'clinging and clawing backwards', a choice he stressed was no verdict on either film.

Who plays the Joker in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Jared Leto got the part after Ryan Gosling was sought first, and stayed in character so completely that Will Smith said he never met him.

Which musician did Suicide Squad's Joker actor cite as an influence on his take on the villain?

David Bowie came up while he built the role, he told NME: not the music so much as Bowie's class, elegance and timelessness.

Which Justice League hero catches the team's boomerang-throwing thief in a brief cameo in Suicide Squad (2016)?

The Flash, played by Ezra Miller, hits him as a red streak mid-robbery; Zack Snyder shot the cameo in London during Justice League, after the main shoot had wrapped.

What was Harley Quinn's profession before the Joker got to her?

Psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum: Dr. Harleen Quinzel was assigned to treat the Joker and thought she was curing him, but she was falling in love.

What does Harley Quinn ask for as her reward at the end of Suicide Squad (2016)?

An espresso machine is her one request when Waller hands out favours along with ten years off each sentence; the Joker breaks her out of prison soon after.

Which star of The Revenant was originally cast as Suicide Squad's Rick Flag before scheduling forced him out?

Tom Hardy had to bail when The Revenant ran over schedule; Jake Gyllenhaal was then offered Rick Flag and passed too.

Who plays Rick Flag in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Joel Kinnaman took the role after two other actors fell away, and later said the first 40 minutes were great before 'conflicting visions' took over.

Who plays Amanda Waller in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Viola Davis won the part from a studio shortlist that also named Octavia Spencer and Oprah Winfrey, reported at the time as the studio's first choice.

Which name belongs to Suicide Squad's boomerang-throwing Australian thief?

Digger Harkness, played by Jai Courtney, has by Waller's account robbed every bank in Australia at least once, then come to America for fresh targets.

What is the name of the sword Katana carries in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Soultaker traps the souls of those it kills, her murdered husband's among them, which is why Katana talks to the blade.

Who plays Katana in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Karen Fukuhara had never made a film before: her karate skills and a friend's borrowed practice sword won her the part, and she later played Kimiko in The Boys.

What is the real name of Suicide Squad's fire-wielding former Los Angeles gang member?

Chato Santana was never caught: he surrendered, and keeps his flames to a flicker as penance after losing control in a rage and killing his own family.

Which Suicide Squad member sacrifices himself in the 2016 film's climax to pin down Enchantress's brother?

El Diablo finally unleashes the fire he had sworn off, swelling into a giant flaming figure to hold her brother over the explosive charge; an earlier cut let him survive.

Who plays Killer Croc?

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje called Killer Croc 'a cannibal with rage issues'; in the climax Croc insists on swimming with the Navy SEALs to plant their explosive charge.

Which squad member is the only one refused a personal favour at the end of Suicide Squad (2016)?

Captain Boomerang scoffs that ten years off a triple life sentence is not enough and demands to walk free, so he alone gets no favour while the others' requests are granted.

Whom does Amanda Waller meet in the mid-credits scene of Suicide Squad (2016)?

Bruce Wayne trades his protection for her files on metahumans; she hints she knows his secret by telling him to stop working nights, and he tells her to shut the squad down.

Which Justice League villain was originally the power behind Enchantress before that plot was scrapped?

Steppenwolf was to control Enchantress with a Mother Box and fight in the climax in her brother's place, until the Justice League storyline changed and the idea had to go.

How did Suicide Squad's director sum up the film for Empire magazine before shooting began?

"Dirty Dozen with supervillains" was his pitch in 2014, and he followed it with a question of his own: "Does a movie really need good guys?"

In which city did filming of Suicide Squad begin in April 2015?

Toronto's downtown core doubled for the film's besieged city: streets were shut for a staged helicopter crash near Bay and Wellington, and extra scenes were shot later in Chicago.

Who, by the director's account, wrote new pages for Suicide Squad's 2016 reshoots?

Geoff Johns, then a senior DC film executive, wrote pages the director says he had to reshoot, among them the caption naming Harley an accomplice in Robin's murder.

Suicide Squad's director says his 'soulful drama' was recut as a comedy after the success of which superhero film?

Deadpool had just been a huge hit and, by his account, the reviews of the studio's previous DC release had shell-shocked its bosses, so they pushed his film toward laughs.

The studio's rival cut of Suicide Squad (2016) was assembled with help from what kind of outside business?

A trailer production company, Trailer Park, had cut the film's well-liked teaser, so the studio had it help build a lighter version to test against the director's sombre one.

Who composed the score for Suicide Squad?

Steven Price's score shares the released film with one rock classic after another, yet the director says his own cut is all Price: 'not a single radio song in the whole thing'.

Which band recorded "Heathens", the lead single from the Suicide Squad soundtrack?

Twenty One Pilots perform it inside a prison in the video, with inmates leaving their cells to watch, between clips from the film.

Which Queen song did Panic! at the Disco cover for the Suicide Squad soundtrack?

Bohemian Rhapsody had been part of Panic! at the Disco's concerts for years before the band recorded it for the film's soundtrack.

Which Academy Award did Suicide Squad win?

Best Makeup and Hairstyling made a film critics had panned an Oscar winner, and no other DC Extended Universe film won one.

Which single did Skrillex and Rick Ross record for the Suicide Squad soundtrack?

Purple Lamborghini's video has the film's Joker because, Skrillex says, he turned down a clip built from film footage and phoned the actor, a friend, to persuade him to appear.

Suicide Squad's opening weekend in North America set a box-office record for which month?

August's old record belonged to Guardians of the Galaxy; Suicide Squad beat it by about 42 percent, then fell 67 percent in its second weekend.

Which actor makes an uncredited appearance as Batman in Suicide Squad (2016)?

Ben Affleck's Batman is seen in flashbacks catching both Deadshot and Harley Quinn, which is how the two end up in Waller's hands.

Which country never gave Suicide Squad (2016) a release date?

China had given the studio's previous DC release a day-and-date opening, one reason that film's worldwide start was bigger, but Suicide Squad never got a slot.

Which horror film ended Suicide Squad's three-week run at number one in North America?

Don't Breathe, a low-budget thriller about burglars who pick the wrong blind man's house, more than doubled its production budget in one weekend and took the top spot.

Which anime kept Suicide Squad out of first place when it opened in Japan?

Your Name, Makoto Shinkai's teen body-swap fantasy, was still on top of Japan's box office weeks into its run, so Suicide Squad opened in second place there.

Which spin-off film followed Suicide Squad in 2020, with Margot Robbie's Harley on the loose in Gotham?

Birds of Prey finds Harley dumped by the Joker and teaming up with other antiheroes to protect a young pickpocket from crime boss Black Mask; Cathy Yan directed.

Who plays Ratcatcher 2's father in flashbacks in The Suicide Squad (2021)?

Taika Waititi plays the original Ratcatcher, who tells his daughter that rats are the lowliest of creatures, and if they have a purpose, so do we all.

In The Suicide Squad (2021), the team is sent to which fictional South American island nation?

Corto Maltese has just fallen to a fiercely anti-American regime, so Waller sends two teams to destroy a Nazi-era laboratory on the island before its secret gets out.

What is the giant alien villain of The Suicide Squad, kept in the Jötunheim laboratory?

Starro, a giant starfish from space, spawns small copies of itself that clamp onto faces and control the bodies, until a swarm of rats chews it to death from the inside.

Which director was hired for the Suicide Squad sequel, then quit before James Gunn took over?

Gavin O'Connor had just finished a script about Deadshot and his daughter when, by his own later account, a new DC boss asked him to turn it into a comedy, so he walked.

Which comic writer's 1980s Suicide Squad run did James Gunn cite as inspiration for his 2021 film?

John Ostrander's run won Gunn over because, in his words, it was about a bunch of losers, and Ostrander himself cameos in the film as the prison's doctor.

James Gunn wrote The Suicide Squad's Peacemaker for which Guardians of the Galaxy star, who had to turn it down?

Dave Bautista says the part was meant for him, but the shoot clashed with Zack Snyder's zombie film Army of the Dead, so John Cena got it instead.

On which streaming service was The Suicide Squad released the same day it reached US cinemas in 2021?

HBO Max carried it for a month from opening day, part of Warner Bros.' pandemic plan to release its whole 2021 slate in cinemas and at home at once.

Who plays Bloodsport, the mercenary jailed for shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet?

Idris Elba was first reported to be replacing Will Smith as Deadshot, but the team gave him a new character instead, leaving the door open for Smith to return.

James Gunn told John Cena to play Peacemaker like a 'douchey, bro-y' version of which hero?

Captain America, only 'douchey' and 'bro-y', was Gunn's correction after Cena began by playing Peacemaker as a Full Metal Jacket-style drill sergeant.

Who voices King Shark in The Suicide Squad?

Sylvester Stallone was the voice Gunn wrote the shark for but was afraid to ask, so three other actors recorded the part first, and none of them worked.

Which squad member did James Gunn call 'the dumbest DC character of all time' before making him tragic?

Polka-Dot Man got an origin to match: a scientist mother who infected him with an interdimensional virus to make him a superhero, so in a fight he pictures every enemy as her.

Which Doctor Who actor plays the Thinker, the villainous scientist in The Suicide Squad (2021)?

Peter Capaldi's Thinker has spent thirty years experimenting on the captive alien in the island's laboratory, and when it breaks loose it drags him into its cell and kills him.

Which squad member does Waller execute by remote-detonated bomb for deserting in the opening battle of The Suicide Squad (2021)?

Savant, the fighter the film opens on, sneers at his team as amateurs, then panics when they are cut down and bolts for the sea, so Waller detonates the explosive in his head.

Which first-team member is revealed in the mid-credits scene of The Suicide Squad (2021) to have survived the beach?

Weasel was written off before the fighting began: he could not swim, sank on the way in and was pronounced dead on the sand, where he lay through the whole massacre.

Which 2024 animated series, written by James Gunn, picks up after The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker?

Creature Commandos begins with Congress barring Waller from sending human prisoners on missions, so she drafts a squad of monsters instead; Gunn wrote all seven episodes of its first season.