Huge Will Smith Movie Leaving Netflix in March
Smith's moment in the DCEU, 'Suicide Squad' (2016), is leaving Netflix next month.
Netflix just announced all the TV shows and movies leaving the platform in March, and the Academy Award-winning film Suicide Squad starring Will Smith made the list. Suicide Squad (2016) leaves Netflix on Sunday, March 31, giving fans just a few more weeks to watch it. For those revisiting the short-lived DCEU franchise, there are a lot of movies to watch before they're gone.
Suicide Squad was written and directed by David Ayer, and had an all-star cast including Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, Cara Delvigne and Jared Leto. Like the DC Comics series by the same name, this movie centered around Smith's character Floyd Lawton, a.k.a. Deadshot. He is the leader of a group of supervillains forced to work on behalf of the U.S. government in a program officially called Task Force X, but nicknamed "The Suicide Squad."
In just seven years, this movie has become a unique cultural artifact, as the superhero movie genre and the landscape of Hollywood in general has changed a lot. Back in 2016, DC was rushing to catch up with Marvel Studios, and this was one of the most promising projects on the slate. Fans were surprised that Smith was involved – and that he was playing a relatively obscure character as far as the average moviegoer is concerned. It was reminiscent of Robert Downey Jr.'s casting as Iron Man back in 2008 when the character was far from the top of Marvel's popular hero list.
Suicide Squad was a commercial success and a critical flop, starting a trend for the DCEU. In hindsight, fans love to joke about the fact that the movie won an Oscar – though it was for best makeup and hairstyling, which was well-deserved. At first, DC seemed intent on expanding the franchise from here with many spinoff films, but the only ones that came to be were the sequel The Suicide Squad in 2021 and Birds of Prey in 2020. Both of those are also leaving Netflix on March 31.
Other DCEU movies leaving Netflix at the end of next month include Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Black Adam, Justice League, Shazam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984. All of those movies were part of the DCEU continuity but it's not clear how they will play into the new DCU franchise that Gunn is working on – if at all.