Jared Leto, Will Smith, Tom Hardy, Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne have joined the cast of Suicide Squad, Warner Bros’ pioneering supervillain movie based on the DC Comics series, according to Variety.
Leto, in one of his first roles after winning the best supporting actor Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, becomes the first actor since The Dark Knight’s late Heath Ledger to play the Joker on the big screen. Smith, in a rare shift into ensemble fare, plays hired assassin Deadshot, while Hardy is military expert Rick Flag.
Robbie has signed up to play Harley Quinn, another traditional enemy of Batman, while Delevingne will portray magical villain Enchantress. Jay Courtney, an Australian actor best known for his turns in Jack Reacher and Divergent, takes the role of dysfunctional villain Boomerang, traditionally an enemy of the Flash.
Suicide Squad was revealed as part of Warner’s slate of 10 movies based around the DC Comics universe – an ambitious bid to take on Disney-owned Marvel Studio’s own hugely successful series of interlinked superhero films – in October. The original comic book, inspired by warsploitation fare such as The Dirty Dozen, is about a team of supervillains recruited to take on suicide black-ops missions in return for the commutation of their sentences. Fury’s David Ayer will direct the film version.
“The Warner Bros roots are deep on this one,” said studio president Greg Silverman said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing this terrific ensemble, under David Ayer’s amazing guidance, give new meaning to what it means to be a villain and what it means to be a hero.”
There could yet be more star names joining the cast. Jesse Eisenberg – Lex Luthor in the upcoming superhero face-off Batman v Superman – is reported to be in talks to join the team, while Warner is on the hunt for a high-profile signing to portray Amanda Waller. The latter is the Rick Fury of the series, the operative who chooses missions and sets out the Suicide Squad’s terms of engagement. Oprah Winfrey is reportedly the studio’s top choice, with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer also said to be in the running.
