{"id":899113,"date":"2026-10-29T20:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899113\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T20:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:06:09","slug":"james-gunn-reveals-if-the-suicide-squad-is-canon-to-his-dc-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/899113\/","title":{"rendered":"James Gunn Reveals if ‘The Suicide Squad’ Is Canon to His DC Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before James Gunn got control of DC Studios, he\u2019d already made a DC movie. 2021\u2019s The Suicide Squad<\/a>, a tangentially related follow-up to 2016\u2019s Suicide Squad<\/a>, was Gunn\u2019s first foray into DC and showed a definite adoration for the brand. One that, a few years later, would lead him to make Peacemaker, Superman<\/a>, Creature Commandos, and more as one of two presidents of DC Studios.<\/p>\n

However, fans have always wondered: Is The Suicide Squad canon to the DC Universe? Gunn\u2019s DCU, officially, started with the animated series Creature Commandos, released in late 2024. Season one of Gunn\u2019s Peacemaker, released in 2022, was eventually tagged as mostly canon<\/a> because its second season, released in 2025, was fully canon. Then, of course, everything released since\u2014Superman, Supergirl, Lanterns, etc.\u2014has fit in. Even Blue Beetle, a film released right before Gunn took over, will be retroactively looped in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what about The Suicide Squad? Well, a few canon DC stories have already mentioned the film\u2019s giant starfish, teasing the connection, and this week, Gunn and DC launched a one-off podcast called \u201cThe Suicide Squad: Is It Canon? The Official Podcast<\/a>\u201d to answer that very question. The full episode was not supposed to be released until Friday, October 30, but GamesRadar+<\/a> got some sort of early preview of Gunn revealing that, yes, The Suicide Squad is canon. Mostly. DC then released the full podcast a little early.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that The Suicide Squad is within the canon of the DCU. It\u2019s decided,\u201d Gunn said. \u201cI\u2019d say we have one small asterisk, which is what exactly is the future of Harley Quinn? I want to be given a little leeway with this by the fans, because I\u2019m not sure exactly how that\u2019s going to manifest itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harley Quinn, of course, was played by Margot Robbie in both Suicide Squad films and she, over basically every other person in the film, has continued to become an even bigger star. So Gunn is leaving the door open for her to return, but isn\u2019t 100% sure if she even wants to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love [Robbie] as Harley, I don\u2019t know if she wants to play Harley again. She may be over that,\u201d Gunn said. He wants to use the character in the DCU though, and \u201cif Margot wants to play her, I\u2019ll bend over backwards to explain that in the world. But if she doesn\u2019t, right, then I might go with somebody else, where I don\u2019t have to be attached to what happens to Harley in this movie. That\u2019s really the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with the potential exception of Harley Quinn, The Suicide Squad is now canon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther than that, I think that we can pretty much say the entire movie is canon. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a problem,\u201d Gunn said. \u201cNow, maybe somebody\u2019s going to come to me on Threads\u2014and I accept the challenges in trying to answer them\u2014with something that can\u2019t be canon within this movie, and that\u2019s okay, because we\u2019re going to make mistakes, we\u2019re going to make mistakes in this movie, we\u2019re going to make mistakes in other movies. But for the most part, I think that it actually fits much more easily into canon than Peacemaker season 1 does. So, I think that we can actually say that yes, not only is The Suicide Squad canon, but it\u2019s the first canon film in the DCU, and that everybody should go watch it right now on HBO Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

Couldn\u2019t have ended the article any better myself.<\/p>\n

The full podcast should be uploaded soon, and it promises to have even more info and dissection of the film. Gunn\u2019s next film is Man of Tomorrow, a Superman follow-up that opens on July 9, 2027.<\/p>\n

This article was updated after publication to include the full podcast, which was released earlier than planned.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows<\/a> to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books<\/a> that should be on your radar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before James Gunn got control of DC Studios, he\u2019d already made a DC movie. 2021\u2019s The Suicide Squad,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1038,10341,88,208,39919,206,31328],"class_list":["post-899113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dc-studios","tag-dc-universe","tag-entertainment","tag-james-gunn","tag-margot-robbie","tag-movies","tag-the-suicide-squad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}