The power of the trailer cannot be overstated in the current cinematic landscape. Time was, you’d only see a trailer once or twice prior to the movie coming out, and that was only when you’d go see something else. (Sidebar: Am I showing how old I am? Am I the new Andy Rooney?) Now, a trailer release is a huge, huge deal, and they can be picked apart and analyzed forever to the point where studios appear to be using reaction to the trailer to beef up parts of the actual movie, which is evidently exactly what WB’s done with this August’s Suicide Squad.
The trailer for the movie was very eye-catching, using Queen‘s campy epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” to give the images of villains being forced to do “good” a baroque silliness. The trailer absolutely made it look like the DCEU’s hard-edged answer to Guardians of the Galaxy. That was entirely the point; but that apparently wasn’t what the movie was like at all.
According to Birth.Movies.Death‘s editor-in-chief Devin Faraci, sources told him initially that the jokes in the trailer were the only jokes in the whole movie, but now, thanks to the reaction the trailer got – and also maybe the heavily divisive reaction to Batman v Superman‘s bleakness – reshoots are happening to lighten Suicide Squad a bit and add more humor. Nerdist has contacted Warner Bros for comment but has gotten no response at time of publication.
For DC’s cinematic universe to truly be successful, it has to embrace the varying tones of its source material, and not always go for dark-dark-darkness in a darkness coat and hat. The Suicide Squad books have a definite air of pitch-black gallows humor necessary for bad guys doing what they do. This, we hope, will lead to changes in the other spinoff films. For instance, The Flash is always one of the most fun books to read in the DC catalog, because its hero is upbeat and has fun. While we certainly don’t think it’ll have the optimism of the CW show, adding a bit of levity will do it some good.
Let us know your thoughts on a funnier, lighter Suicide Squad in the comments below!
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HT: Birth.Movies.Death
Image: Warner Bros
Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist.com. Follow him on Twitter!
