In February, a number of directors emerged as the top picks to direct Suicide Squad 2, including Hollywood golden boy Mel Gibson, Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer, Safe House’s Daniel Espinosa, and Warm Bodies’ Jonathan Levine. Now, none of those guys are attached any longer, and The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra is the new frontrunner. That’s according to Deadline, but a separate Hollywood Reporter story says that Gibson decided not to take the job over some script delays and that Warner Bros. has a new treatment written by Zak Penn (who worked on The Avengers and Ready Player One).
Collet-Serra is also the director behind the Liam Neeson movies Non-Stop, Run All Night, and The Commuter, and he has apparently been in high-demand in Hollywood for a while now. Of course, Suicide Squad 2 isn’t an unforgettable Liam Neeson vehicle like Run All Night, so it remains to be seen if he’ll really be able to improve on David Ayer’s original film.