Tom Hardy Explains Why He Exited SUICIDE SQUAD

After playing iconic Batman villain Bane in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy was set to return to the DC Universe in next year’s Suicide Squad, this time playing Rick Flagg. However, the actor dropped out a couple months before production began.Joel Kinnaman was later cast as his replacement. Initial reports claimed that Hardy experienced scheduling conflicts between Suicide Squad and The Revenant, while rumors suggested that he was displeased with the script. Turns out that it was the former.

In an interview with Collider, Hardy confirmed that the longer-than-expected production schedule for The Revenant kept him from playing Rick Flagg. However, he praises the script, as well as the storyline with The Joker and Harley Quinn. “Warner Bros. is my home studio and I love them so I was really bummed out. I wanted to work on that and I know the script is really [bleep]ing alley and I also know what’s gonna happen with The Joker and Harley Quinn in that; I won’t give away too much…it’s [bleep]ing alley. And that whole territory is something that I would certainly—I mean, everybody loves The Joker. Everybody loves The Joker. Will Smith is a dope guy, but everybody loves The Joker and that’s gonna, I think, be a very important film for fans.” By “alley,” Hardy means the script was right up his alley.

Hardy then explains that he will return to filming The Revenant in July, which would have put his schedule directly into conflict with Suicide Squad. “It would have smashed the two, I would’ve had a beard. It was just not gonna happen so I got ass-slammed technically out of Suicide Squad, gutted, so I had to hand it over to Joel Kinnaman, who will do an amazing job. It’s just I got bumped out, and that’s cool that’s the way it is.”

Fans were initially disappointed when Hardy dropped out, despite the fact that he had already played a DC supervillain. However, fingers crossed that Warner Bros. will find another role for him in the DC Cinematic Universe.

Suicide Squad is scheduled to hit theaters August 5th, 2016. The third installment in the DC Cinematic Universe stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Jim Parrack, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, Common, Scott Eastwood, Viola Davis and Jared Leto. David Ayer writes and directs.