There’s been a steady stream of images and information coming from the set of Suicide Squad, and after footage from Saturday’s Comic-Con presentation leaked, David Ayer just released the preview footage from his film. As you’d expect from a movie by Ayer (Fury, Training Day), it’s gritty and grim — with Jared Leto’s Joker intoning, “Oh, I’m not gonna kill you. I’m just gonna hurt you really, really badly.”
Suicide Squad is the second half of the one-two punch that Warner Bros. hopes will cause a DC expanded cinematic universe to spontaneously manifest next year. First up is Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, scheduled for release on March 25th of next year, in which we’ll see Superman, Ben Affleck’s Batman, and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Suicide Squad follows less than five months later on August 5th, in which we’ll see Jared Leto as the Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, and Ben Affleck as Batman yet again. But it’s a movie largely based on characters many audiences haven’t heard of, so Warner Bros. will likely have to do a lot more than release trailers to get people to jump on board.