Barring anything else crazy happening by the end of Friday, this week’s winner in the category of “WTF News” belongs to yesterday’s reports that Mel Gibson is in early talks to direct “Suicide Squad 2.” It’s not a done deal and there are other contenders in the mix — Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House,” the upcoming sci-fi “Life“), Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland,” “Gangster Squad“), and Jonathan Levine (“Warm Bodies,” “50/50“) — but that Gibson is even at the table is surprising. However, he cautions it’s all very early.
“It’s kind of a first date,” he said about the state of the discussions during a Q&A for “Hacksaw Ridge” at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica last night, which you can watch below (via Comic Book).
We’ll see how far these conversations go, but it’s worth noting that Gibson spent a good chunk of last year casually dismissing superheroes and the blockbuster movie making process in general. I would imagine it’s going to take a lot to get him to sign on for “Suicide Squad 2.” But if you need a reminder of what he’s said about the genre, here’s a handy collection of his observations:
September 2016
“I look at them and scratch my head. I’m really baffled by it. I think there’s a lot of waste, but maybe if I did one of those things with the green screens, I’d find out different. I don’t know. Maybe they do cost that much. It seems to me that you could do it for less,” Gibson said. “…if you’re spending outrageous amounts of money, $180 million or more, I don’t know how you make it back after the tax man gets you and after you give half to the exhibitors.”
“What did they spend on ‘Batman v Superman’ that they’re admitting to? And it’s a piece of shit.”
August 2016
“Real superheroes don’t wear spandex and they don’t have a lot of 3D special effects, but they do operate on a higher level, on a supernatural level,” he told Pastor Greg Laurie. “And they actually look and appeal to something greater than themselves — and they do something super human.”
He also said that he already “made the ultimate superhero film in ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ ”
May 2016:
“Some are good. Some are kind of funny … ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ Or the first ‘Iron Man.’ And some of them are just like [retreads]. I mean you can watch them do Spider-Man five times … There is a slight shift in film. But, then again, I think all films are suffering from people not being able to now open them with their name. It’s a different kind of business these days,” Gibson said. “I think you used to get more variety of stories, films and performances. You had more of a chance of a profound film experience. But that’s not gone. I think that has been relegated to the independent world – but they have to do it twice as fast for half the money.”
Honestly, it doesn’t really sound like making a big, superhero movie is really where his head is at, and that’s not to mention stepping into the dire mess that is DC Films at the moment. But hey, stranger things have happened, so who knows….