Warner Bros. Initially Asked James Gunn to Make THE SUICIDE SQUAD PG-13
Director James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is the exact film that he wanted to make. He did not have to compromise his vision for the film that we saw. What is in theaters in the director’s cut, it’s hard R, and fans seeming to be loving it! The movie is rated R for "strong violence and gore, language throughout, some sexual references, drug use, and brief graphic nudity.”
It turns out that there was a point where Warner Bros. asked Gunn if he could turn his hard R Suicide Squad film into PG-13 movie. Obviously, the director didn’t go for it. During a recent interview with Collider, the director shared:
"I wrote the script the whole time, thinking they would let me make it, I mean, they asked, 'Can you make this PG-13?' I said no. I said, 'You can make it and take it with somebody else, and they can direct it, and you can do a PG 13. But if I'm going to direct it, I want it to be R.' They were like, 'Okay, that's worth the trade-off for us.' So, they were great about it."
While I thought the film was fantastic and I enjoyed the hell out of it, the one downside is that my daughter really wanted to see it, but it’s just too much R for her. Gunn went on to explain that he has received studio notes from both DC and Marvel Studios, on the film’s that he’s made but he added, "any idea that I take in it's because I choose to take it, not because I'm being told to do something."
"I get notes from Marvel, and I get notes from DC, but no, they always said, 'You can take these or leave these. You can do whatever you want with these. If you want to take these notes, you can take them. If you don't want to take these notes, you don't have to take them.' It's never gotten anything beyond that ever. So it's like, they give notes. Marvel gives more than DC does to me, but they're the same attitude of like, take what you want and leave the rest. I take a lot of them. There's a lot of good ideas in there. Even if I don't take them, one of the main things I do is I try them, especially while I'm editing. I try them out to see if they work."
It’s cool to see that Gunn is actually open to incorporating the notes that he receives, and it’s also cool that neither of the studios force him to utilize their notes. Gunn seems to have a great working relationship with the people he works with, and they obviously trust him.