EXCLUSIVE: The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra has emerged as frontrunner choice to direct Suicide Squad 2, the next installment of the 2016 Warner Bros DC film that grossed $745 million worldwide. The studio looked at a number of filmmakers — Mel Gibson among them — but sources said the studio is focused on Collet-Serra to take the reins of a franchise that has Will Smith and Margot Robbie back in the ensemble.

The original, written and directed by David Ayer, was about a group of incorrigible jailbirds with special skills who were conscripted to fight terrible villains with the idea the heroes were expendable. The first film wasn’t a favorite of the fanboy crowd, but it a big global financial hit for the studio that left no doubt of future installments.

Collet-Serra, the Spanish director who broke into Hollywood with the genre hit Orphan, followed with the hits Non-Stop and The Shallows and has upcoming the 2018 Liam Neeson starrer The Commuter. He is in high demand and recently became attached to Annapurna’s Waco, a drama scripted by Zero Dark Thirty’s Mark Boal and Kubo and the Two Strings’ Marc Haimes about the 1993 standoff between the FBI and Texas state law enforcement and the David Koresh-led Branch Davidians that turned the sleepy town of Elk, just outside of Waco, into a battle zone. A 51-day standoff ended with 76 people dead as the cult’s compound was engulfed by a raging fire.

Collet-Serra is repped by CAA and Management 360.