Development Original plans was initially set to return as director from the first
Suicide Squad, but chose to work on other projects. Before the first
Suicide Squad film was released in August 2016, director
David Ayer and star
Will Smith were expected to return for a
sequel. Filming was planned to begin in 2017 after the pair completed their work on the film
Bright (2017). Gunn was uncertain if he wanted to take on Superman, so Warner Bros. told him that he could adapt any DC property he liked. He chose to make a Suicide Squad film, recalling that it was the one DC property he dreamed of adapting and had been jealous when Ayer's
Suicide Squad film performed well. but the actor declined as he had a scheduling conflict with Zack Snyder's
Army of the Dead (2021).
John Cena entered talks for a role in the film that was believed to be Peacemaker in late April, as Gunn had wanted to work with Cena since seeing his performance in
Trainwreck (2015). Cena made numerous unsuccessful attempts to join the DCEU prior to his casting in this film.
David Dastmalchian and
Daniela Melchior were respectively cast as Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher 2 at the end of April. Gunn said the role of Polka-Dot Man was "tailor made" for Dastmalchian, who had been friends with Gunn for a long time. In contrast, Melchior was cast from a group of 200 actors. She did a chemistry test with live rats as part of her
audition process because her character controls rats in the film and had to interact with them on set. Gunn's frequent collaborator
Michael Rooker was in talks to join the cast in May, while
Storm Reid was cast as the daughter of Elba's character in July.
Flula Borg,
Nathan Fillion and
Steve Agee joined the film in August, with Agee initially reported to be portraying King Shark. Also in August,
Taika Waititi entered negotiations for a role.
Peter Capaldi joined the cast in early September, when
Pete Davidson was in talks to make a
cameo appearance during a break from his work on
Saturday Night Live. Davidson agreed to join the film because his character is called "
Dick Hertz", which Davidson found to be funny.
Maria Gabriela de Faría auditioned for a role in the film with self-tapes, but was left so "starstruck" by Gunn during her audition that, coupled with her poor English at the time, she did not understand his instructions about "acting like a brat" because she did not want him to think she could not speak English and did not perform the scene as he wanted, later
Googling the word and finding out what it really meant. de Faría would later be cast as
Angela Spica / The Engineer in Gunn's
DC Universe (DCU) film
Superman (2025). A table read for the film with the full cast was held on September 11, ahead of the start of filming later that month. Gunn later announced the film's full main cast and characters: Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Cena as Peacemaker, Courtney as Captain Boomerang,
Joaquín Cosío as Mateo Suarez, Fillion as
T.D.K., Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Mayling Ng as
Mongal, Borg as
Javelin, his brother
Sean Gunn as
Weasel,
Juan Diego Botto as Silvio Luna, Reid as Tyla, Davidson as Blackguard, Waititi as the first Ratcatcher,
Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Agee, Tinashe Kajese as Flo Crawley, Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, Capaldi as
Thinker, Julio Ruiz as Milton,
Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt, Davis as Waller, Elba as
Bloodsport, Robbie as Quinn and Rooker as
Savant. Agee was the on-set reference for King Shark, and also portrays John Economos.
Design Production designer Beth Mickle said Gunn wanted the film to be "grey and drab and monotone" until the characters arrive in Corto Maltese, which he wanted to "explode with color" like
Panama and
Cuba. The design team took inspiration from photos of
Havana, Cuba and
São Paulo,
Brazil. Gunn said the film featured the biggest sets ever built for a Warner Bros. film, with Mickle building a set the size of three football fields for the outside of Jötunheim where the final battle was filmed, and an even bigger beach set that had real waves and a palm tree forest which Gunn called "the greatest set [he had] ever been on". The jungle featured a bamboo cage that was deep. Gunn said building a whole beach was expensive, but it was more cost-effective than using a real beach due to changing tides and the limited amount of time available for filming in a real environment. Because of the mixture of characters that Gunn selected for the film's Suicide Squad roster, there are "dorky comics costumes" alongside "modern, scary, grimdark" costumes. One of the biggest costume challenges for Gunn was creating Bloodsport's suit, from which the character can form various weapons. Robbie wears a new costume that features Harley's traditional red and black color palette, with Gunn taking inspiration from the character's costume in the video game
Batman: Arkham City (2011). He wanted her jacket to have "motorcycle gang style"-writing on the back and chose "Live fast, die clown" over other potential options "Clown AF" and "World's Best Grandpa". Gunn also removed Harley's "Rotten" facial tattoo that she had in previous DCEU films because both he and Robbie disliked it. Flag wears a yellow T-shirt with a cartoon character called "Ultra Bunny" on it. Gunn drew the character and added the text "obstacles are opportunities" which is his slogan when directing on set. Gunn initially used a
hammerhead shark design from
the New 52 comics for King Shark, but found that it would be awkward to film the character with other actors due to his eyes being on the sides of his head. Gunn settled on a
great white shark design that is similar to the one seen in the
Harley Quinn animated series, though this was a coincidence as that series was released after filming for
The Suicide Squad began. Gunn gave King Shark a
dad bod to make him look less like a mammal, as well as small eyes, a big mouth and a small head to avoid the "cute anthropomorphic beast" design seen in popular characters like
Baby Groot from
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and
The Mandalorian (2019–present)s
Grogu.
Filming Principal photography began on September 20, 2019, at
Pinewood Atlanta Studios in
Fayette County, Georgia, under the working title
El Dorado.
Henry Braham served as cinematographer, after previously doing so for Gunn's
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Feige and Marvel Studios co-president
Louis D'Esposito visited the set during filming. Gunn took several precautions to try to avoid details about the film leaking, such as referring to Elba's character in the script and on set as "
Vigilante" to prevent his actual role from being revealed and also not giving some of the actors script pages from after their characters' deaths. Gunn extensively
storyboards his films, but the opening shot of
The Suicide Squad—in which the camera rotates out of a puddle's reflection on the ground to reveal Savant bouncing a ball—was a spontaneous decision that he made on set when he saw the reflections on the ground. For a scene where Bloodsport smokes a cigarette, Elba—who has asthma and does not smoke himself—was left with tears in his eyes that had to be removed digitally since Gunn otherwise liked the shot. Gunn said the film used more practical effects than any other blockbuster comic book film, with on-set special effects provided by
Dan Sudick and prosthetics created by
Legacy Effects. Gunn highlighted a shot in the film where King Shark, who is created with visual effects, rips a person in half, which was done practically using special effects and prosthetics. Stunt supervisor
Guy Norris served as
second unit director for the car scenes in the film. Gunn explained that he rarely uses second unit directors on his films and has never liked working with them, but he enjoyed the experience of working with Norris as he was not comfortable shooting with cars and had already known Norris for a long time. Filming in Atlanta was expected to last three months before moving to Panama for a month, with
Colón, Panama standing in for the streets of Corto Maltese. Gunn said the city was "beautiful but falling-apart... we were able to use all the colors but to keep the grime" as well. The cast and crew rescued several animals from the streets of Panama. Filming also took place in
Porto,
Portugal, and
wrapped on February 28, 2020.
Editing Fred Raskin and
Christian Wagner served as editors on the film. Raskin previously collaborated alongside Gunn on
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. By April 2020, Gunn was editing the film at his home due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, which he said had not affected post-production or the release schedule at that time. The initial assembly cut for the film was around two hours and forty minutes long and around twenty minutes of that was soon cut down during editing. Gunn felt the film was still too long and removed some elements such as part of Harley Quinn's separate storyline that he felt was "pushing audiences away a little bit too much", as well as a sequence with Ratcatcher, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man and the Thinker when they exit a Corto Maltese bar. Gunn felt the latter was "pretty dynamite stuff" but it was slowing down the film and at the wrong time. A smaller scene that was cut involved Waller's aide Flo Crawley being arrested for knocking Waller out during the final battle; Gunn explained that this was a mostly unnecessary detail which made the audience feel uncomfortable since it felt less like the villain, Waller, had lost, but he included the moment in a recap of the film that begins the spin-off series
Peacemaker to explain why Crawley is not in that series. In December, Gunn said editing for the film's final cut had been completed and work on the remaining visual effects, sound and score was continuing. The final runtime is two hours and twelve minutes.
Visual effects Kelvin McIlwain was the visual effects supervisor for the film, with visual effects vendors including
Framestore,
Weta Digital,
Trixter,
Scanline VFX and
Cantina Creative. Gunn said the visual effects for King Shark, primarily handled by Framestore and Weta Digital, were particularly difficult to get right.
Music In May 2020,
John Murphy was set as the composer for the film.
Tyler Bates, who scored all of Gunn's previous films, was originally attached to compose the score for
The Suicide Squad but eventually left the project. During pre-production, Bates wrote music for Gunn to use on set as he had previously done for Gunn on the
Guardians of the Galaxy films. The single "Rain" by
grandson and
Jessie Reyez from the film's soundtrack album was released on June 22, 2021, with the artists also expected to contribute songs individually to the album. A single from Murphy's score, "So This Is The Famous Suicide Squad", was made available on July 8. On August 6, two full albums for the film were released by
WaterTower Music: one featuring Murphy's score and a soundtrack album featuring songs from the film, including "Rain".
Completion In January 2021, at the beginning of filming for
Peacemaker in
Vancouver, Canada, Gunn filmed a
post-credits scene for
The Suicide Squad that sets-up the series. He had not planned an alternative post-credits scene before deciding to make
Peacemaker. A month later, the film was fully finished. Gunn said Warner Bros. had not interfered with his vision for the film and had only given a few minor notes. He added that
The Suicide Squad was the most fun he had making a film, which he attributed to prioritizing creativity over perfectionism, being in the best place mentally and emotionally of his career, having a "stupendous" cast and crew and supportive studio and feeling that he was at the height of his directing abilities with the film. It came in under budget and had no days of additional photography. In July, the film's release date was moved up by a day to August 5. ==Marketing==