James Gunn Reveals The Most Difficult Character To Design In The Suicide Squad

"The Suicide Squad," writer-director James Gunn's funny reimagining of the DC antihero team that previously got a movie in 2016 with David Ayer's "Suicide Squad," is getting positive reviews, with critics praising its humor and visuals. They appreciate that it feels distinctly like a James Gunn movie. 

Which makes sense, because Gunn certainly worked very hard on making the best movie he could. A lot of thought went into the details, like the what, where, when, and how of the weapons used by Bloodsport (Idris Elba), who Gunn said was the most difficult character to design for "The Suicide Squad."

Robert DuBois, aka Bloodsport, is a mercenary with a special suit that generates weapons for him. Little pieces of weapon material are stored all over his body that he can assemble into big guns or melee weapons or whatever the situation calls for. These are in addition to the flamethrower and wrist slingshots and other things built into the suit. It's a very cool suit that looks great in the movie, but Gunn said that it was a very difficult thing to design. Bloodsport may not appear at first glance to have the most complicated character design, but it sounds like figuring him out was like trying to solve a puzzle. A puzzle made of guns.

James Gunn explained to Cinema Blend that designing Bloodsport was difficult because the character himself was not finalized until pretty late in pre-production (the original idea, which didn't end up happening, was that Elba would take over the role of Deadshot, who was played by Will Smith in "Suicide Squad"). Once they'd decided to use Bloodsport, Gunn and his collaborators — costume designer Judianna Makovsky and prop master Andrew Petrotta — had to figure out how to bring his weapons to life on screen.

"The three of us would have to get together every two days and sort of say, 'Oh, no, that doesn't work there because we're actually shooting from the other side of the screen at that time, so we've got to move that over there. But, oh, if we moved that there, then that side is going to be too bulky because that's where the flamethrower is! So you've got to move the flamethrower over there.' It was complicated!" Gunn said. "And then to get into each of the little pieces, I didn't want them to be just these magic balls that change. I wanted them to actually be able to physically transform. And so that became very, very difficult."

In the end, though, they made it work, and the results can be seen when "The Suicide Squad" is hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6.