"There was a time" when James Gunn contemplated making Superman the target of Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad.
In the final cut of the film, the reluctant do-gooders are forced into service by the US government to investigate Project Starfish, the study of a literal – albeit gigantic – starfish called Starro. A city gets totalled, people get clamped with aquatic facehuggers, and villains die. It's a whale – or rather, starfish – of a time. Let me know if I've said starfish too much.
RELATED: The Suicide Squad Understands The Best And Worst Of Humanity
However, Gunn initially planned to have the Man of Steel himself be the big bad. This was part of Zack Snyder's vision, already, with visions of a future where Superman loses Lois Lane and becomes Darkseid's herald, wearing all-black and laser-eyeing innocent civilians. He's so bad, Batman ropes in Joker to help out.
Gunn wanted to jump the gun and have Superman go villain (or antagonist) a little early. He said that it would make for "a very interesting story." Whether it would be the government fearing an alien (repeating Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) or Clark Kent actually deciding to go Homelander isn't known. Regardless, the idea was stubbed out and Starro was brought into the fold.
"Starro is a character I love from the comics," Gunn told Script Apart. "I think he's a perfect comic book character because he's absolutely ludicrous but he's also very scary in his own way. What he does is scary. He used to scare the crap out of me when I was a child, putting those facehuggers on Superman and Batman and stuff.
"I thought [Starro] was one of the major, major DC villains that was probably never going to be put into another movie," Gunn said." If they did, they would do it like the black cloud version of Starro [referencing Galactus in the original Fantastic Four films]. Not a giant, walking starfish – a kaiju that is bright pink and cerulean blue, just a ridiculously big, bright bad guy."
There was also the question of who Superman was. Is it Cavill? Is it the Black Superman Warner Bros. has been talking about? Is it a recast? It's murky water right now, and James Gunn "didn't want to deal with it all that much." Nonetheless, that isn't the driving factor. The main reason is that Gunn dug the idea of Starro more.
Next: The Suicide Squad Opens To Disappointing Box Office Numbers Even Though It's A Good Movie
