Suicide Squad 2 Took "The" From Marvel's Eternals Title, Jokes James Gunn
The Suicide Squad benefitted from Marvel Studios' decision to just call Chloe Zhao's upcoming film just Eternals, James Gunn jokes. It was a tumultuous time for the director back in 2018 when he was haphazardly fired as the director and writer of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after a series of his unsavory social media posts from years ago were unearthed. At that point, he has directed the previous two installments of the cosmic film series, and his dismissal disappointed a lot of fans. However, this also gave him the opportunity to board Warner Bros.' own comic book movie franchise efforts, helming The Suicide Squad.
Several months after being booted out of the MCU, Disney and Marvel Studios re-assessed their original decision and brought back Gunn. The filmmaker agreed, but he needs to prioritize The Suicide Squad over Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Both camps agreed, making Gunn the first director to work on a DC and Marvel project almost simultaneously. Because of this, he can also openly talk about both comic book movie brands, and at times, even joke about it.
Related: Is The Suicide Squad A Sequel, Remake, Reboot, or Standalone Story?
On the heels of Marvel Studios officially using Eternals as the title for their latest origin story, effectively dropping "the" in it, Gunn jokes that he benefitted from this move as he can use the preposition freely for The Suicide Squad. The director piled up on a fan who floated the idea that the change was because he needed to "the" for his own DC Films project. Check out Gunn's full tweet below:
Another fan asked in the thread if Gunn knows anything about Eternals, surprisingly, the director indulged and answered, saying he knows about Zhao's film and that he thinks it'll be good. Other than that, however, he didn't elaborate on any other details regarding the project considering that Marvel Studios hasn't released any proper promotional material for it since the Chinese New Year poster and costume concept art. In any case, it makes sense that Gunn is privy to what Marvel Studios is trying to do in Eternals — after all, he's the one who opened up the cosmic side of the MCU. In fact, a rare one-sheet for the film includes the return of the Celestial, Eson the Searcher, who previously made a brief appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Warner Bros. and Gunn have officially unveiled their character line-up for The Suicide Squad last weekend at DC FanDome, which could be an indication that they're gearing up to officially market the film. The line-up includes a string of former MCU stars such as Ildris Elba (Bloodsport) and Michael Rooker (Savant) proving that there's really no bad blood between DC and Marvel — only friendly competition. Even Taika Waititi who will star and direct Thor: Love & Thunder after working on Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame is set to make his DC return through the Gunn-directed film, further backing this idea up. As for Marvel Studios, no word yet when they'll drop new content about their slate, but for what its worth, Eternals has finished filming before the coronavirus pandemic, meaning they can drop a trailer if they want to.
Source: James Gunn