James Gunn has teased for a while that there is a Guardians of The Galaxy Easter Egg in The Suicide Squad that no one had managed to find, but it looks like the cat is now out of the bag…or to be more specific, the Mantis is out on the stage. Thanks mostly in part to the movie being available on HBO Max, giving people the chance to pause and rewind at will, eagle-eyed viewers have discovered Pom Klementieff, better known to Marvel fans as Guardians’ Mantis, as a red headed dancer in a Spanish bar in a quick cameo when Task Force X is on the look out for The Thinker during their mission.
With James Gunn being one of the few to have worked on both Marvel and DC projects, it was always inevitable that the director would manage to slip in some references to his other day job during his DC debut, and in The Suicide Squad, he has been saying for a while that they were there if people wanted to search for them, with the Mantis actress being the last.
not to be i told you so but. I CALLED IT LMAOO. my instincts are always right. they kept insisting pom klementieff was just visiting the suicide squad cast bc she was filming thunder force nearby but i had a feeling they were lying 🤣 pic.twitter.com/JiLkPWLlHG
— mandy celestine (@karengiIIn) August 4, 2021
The thing is that it should have been clear quite a while ago, as one Twitter user pointed out that Pom Klementieff had been seen in a picture with the Suicide Squad cast quite a while ago but it was insisted at the time that she had just been visiting the set for a day while filming Thunder Force but it now seems clear that she had been there for a different reason. Gunn also said recently that he almost had another Guardian in the movie in the form of Drax actor Dave Bautista.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gunn said, “”Well, I mean people know I almost cast Dave in a role and he couldn’t do it, so he didn’t,” he explained. “Other than that, well, there might be a Guardian somewhere in the film that no one has seen yet and I’m so surprised by… I’ve gotten a hundred reviews from this movie and I’m just astounded.”
@JamesGunn Was that Mantis @PomKlementieff on stage in the bar? SIDENOTE: Outstanding job with #SuicideSquad I laughed, I cried, I craved num nums.
— Secretary of Fun Elect – Nick D (@Fat_Nick78) August 6, 2021
It is safe to say that Gunn has a major hit on his hands with The Suicide Squad pulling in $4.1 million on its preview night which ran from 7pm Thursday. As one of the few R-rated movies to arrive since the reopening of cinemas, the movie has taken over Demonslayer, which on its Thursday night kick off managed to pull in $3.8 million. To put it into another context, The previous R-rated DC movie Birds of Prey managed to make $4 million before the pandemic hit back in February 2020, which ultimately led it to taking $33 million in its opening weekend. Considering the mixed reviews of Birds of Prey compared to the great amount of love being shown for The Suicide Squad, the projections of a minimum of $30 million domestic are likely to be well surpassed by the time the numbers come in on Monday.