Will Smith

As this mediocre summer movie season nears an end, there’s a little bit of pressure on Suicide Squad to deliver the goods. The trailers are great, the cast looks fantastic, and we’re even excited about Jared Leto’s Joker — despite that jarring Hot Topic street thug aesthetic. David Ayer’s DC super-villain flick hits theaters next week, and just in case you need a couple of extra reasons to get out and see it, WB has released a new featurette that puts the focus on the film’s practical stunts.

The trailers for Suicide Squad have done a fairly good job of letting each member of Task Force X shine, though they have leaned a bit more heavily on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Jared Leto’s Joker — at least they know their target audience. But these new clips help us get to know some of the other major characters from David Ayer’s DC super-villain ensemble, like Will Smith’s Deadshot and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller.

Yesterday, Entertainment Weekly revealed four new covers featuring the cast of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, which has taken over the latest edition of the magazine. As you probably assumed, that was just the tip of the iceberg, as even more new photos have arrived showing off the full rogues gallery (along with Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller) from the highly-anticipated anti-hero team-up.

We are about a month away from the release of Suicide Squad, David Ayer’s devious new DC super-villain team-up that brings The Joker, Harley Quinn, Deadshot and more together in what will hopefully prove to be an antidote to this disappointing summer movie season. If you’re itching for a new look at the Squad, Ayer’s film has taken over the latest edition of EW, which features the cast on four different magazine covers as well as some new info on the highly-anticipated project.

I saw the Suicide Squad trailer on the big screen for the first time last week. (It was one of the few highlights of my trip to the multiplex for Independence Day: Resurgence.) Sometimes trailers play very differently on the big screen than they do at home. But Suicide Squad worked even better big than it did on my laptop. It just looks like a hit, which is not something you can say about many 2016 summer movies (like, for example, Independence Day: Resurgence).

We always knew they were coming back. After all, what epic, era-defining blockbuster doesn’t get a sequel in this day and age? None. And Independence Day truly was one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, both in terms of grosses (it was the top earner of 1996, both home and abroad) and scope, with mile-wide UFOs descending on our planet, wiping out our most treasured landmarks, and trying to eradicate our species. A few brave heroes fought back and saved our world from extinction and now, 20 years later, most of them return to fight a new alien menace in Independence Day: Resurgence (except for Will Smith, he was busy). A cast of familiar faces (Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman) and newcomers (Liam

The movie itself may wind up being conventional and boring, but the marketing for Suicide Squad has been delightful and unpredictable right from the start. The trailers, the ads, have all sold the fact that this is not your ordinary superhero movie; these “heroes” are actually villains forced into savior mode by a deal with the U.S. Government. The film’s two new posters are no exception. Even the way the stock credits are displayed is unusual (on top instead of bottom). This Suicide Squad, they don’t play by your rules, man! Not even your advertising rules! They take your rules and they laugh at them, and then maybe Jared Leto sends them a rat or something because he’s really quite Method about this whole Joker thing.

Suicide Squad is one of our most anticipated films of the summer — mostly because after a few months of watching heroes save the world in big blockbusters, it’ll be fun to see a team of villains swoop in to shake things up. If Amanda Waller is to be believed in these new TV spots, these guys (and a couple of ladies) are the worst of the worst, but maybe that’s what we need right now.

Recent news of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn spinoff confirms what we already assumed: she’s the best part of Suicide Squad. But if a new rumor proves to be true, she may not be the only charismatic member of Task Force X, as Warner Bros. might be considering giving a couple of her villainous co-stars spinoffs of their very own. To be honest, a Captain Boomerang solo movie doesn’t seem like something that would ever actually happen, but WB has done wackier things in recent years.

It’s been a while since we had an update on Bright, so you’d be excused for forgetting all about it — except it’s sort of impossible to forget that David Ayer is directing a movie for Netflix starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton as a pair of mismatched buddy cops. Oh, and one of them is an orc, apparently. It’s also hard to forget how the internet’s collective jaw dropped when Netflix plopped down $90 million for the film, and it looks like some of that money might go to Noomi Rapace, as the actress is in talks to join the strange new project.