David Ayer’s ‘Bright’ is a ‘Suicide Squad’ Reunion With New Cast Member Ike Barinholtz

Once in the Suicide Squad, always in the Suicide Squad, at least if you’re Will Smith and his co-star Ike Barinholtz, who has just joined Smith and Joel Edgerton in David Ayer’s Netflix orc buddy cop movie Bright. Which is a very weird second half of a sentence to type.

Deadline reports that Barinholtz has just joined the film, which recently started production in Los Angeles. Bright made headlines earlier this year for being an unprecedented deal for Netflix, which paid $90 million for Ayer to direct the streaming service’s first big blockbuster-tentpole original feature. We don’t know who Barinholtz is playing, but we do know that Will Smith and Joel Edgerton are the two police officer protagonists. Bright will be a standard buddy cop movie, but with a twist: Deadline describes it as “an R-rated grounded cop procedural, but in a world populated not only with humans but also fantastical, mythical creatures.”

Noomi Rapace has also been in talks to join the film, but so far most character and plot details are being kept under wraps, aside from the fact that Edgerton will be playing an orc who teams up with Will Smith to find a magical wand. And by the way, if you’re wondering what Edgerton’s character looks like, good news: some set photos were posted online a few days ago, and, well.

He’s certainly orc-ish. This project looks nuts, and we’re very excited for more news about it. Netflix usually doesn’t release a whole lot of details about their properties before they premiere because it doesn’t really have to — what the streaming service produces depends less on viewership numbers of individual shows and movies, and more on how many people are signing up for the service. With a movie with a cast and director as high-profile as this, it’s a huge get for the network, and a huge draw for any folks who might still be on the fence about finally getting a subscription. No word yet on whether Bright will be getting a theatrical release either before, during, or after it arrives online.