Back to the Future’s time machine was a fridge in the first draft, and Ghostbusters’ original casting choice for Venkman was John Belushi rather than Bill Murray–even the classics go through huge changes from first draft to final cut. For James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, the big change was the villain; instead of Starro, at one point the plan was to have the Squad face off against Superman (via AV Club).
Gunn went on the Script Apart podcast recently to talk about developing the script for The Suicide Squad. There, he said that he initially believed that the Squad should fight Superman, and that it would be “a very interesting story.”
Ultimately, though, he went with a bigger surprise in the form of Starro, a giant, cosmic starfish.
“When I came up with Starro–he’s a character I love from the comics. I think he’s the perfect comic book character because he’s absolutely ludicrous but he’s also very scary in his own way,” Gunn said. “What he does is scary. He used to scare the crap out of me when I was a child, putting those face-huggers on Superman and Batman and stuff. So I thought he was one of the major, major DC villains that was probably never going to be put into another movie. And if they did, they would do it like, the black cloud version of Starro. Not a giant, walking starfish, a kaiju that is bright pink and cerulean blue, just ridiculously big, bright bad guy.”
Gunn is likely right about how another director might’ve handled the initially silly Starro. Further, though, he was smart to go that route just simply for how saturated we are with Evil Superman stories. Gunn himself produced Brightburn, a movie that asked what would happen if a child with the ability to fly and fire eye lasers decided to be evil instead of good, from a script written by his brother Brian and cousin Mark. The Boys on Amazon Prime Video prominently features Homelander, a barely-reined-in Superman-like character who is always about to lose his cool and slaughter people by the thousands. Then there’s also the fact that game developer Rocksteady Studios’ upcoming game, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League pits many of the same members, including Harley Quinn, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang, against Superman in its first trailer. In other words, if we want Evil Superman, we have a long list of things to watch. The list of colossal, psychic, cosmic starfish-based stories is much, much shorter.
If you’re hungry for more info about The Suicide Squad, check out our glowing review, our interview with James Gunn, and what could’ve happened for the film’s ending.
