When Will Smith left James Gunn‘s Suicide Squad sequel, there was some question of whether or not a new actor would replace him, or if Smith’s character Deadshot would be cut. The answer came quickly, when Idris Elba took over the part. Now, we might know why. Early Suicide Squad 2 plot details reveal that Deadshot is a central figure in Gunn’s script, and that the story is drawing heavily from a classic 1980s comic run from Jon Ostrander and Kim Yale.

Will Smith is a big star, but his Deadshot didn’t have much to do in the first Suicide Squad. That might change considerably for Suicide Squad sequel The Suicide Squad, but it won’t be Smith in the role. According to THR, the character – now played by Idris Elba –is going to take center stage in the new film. As THR writes: “Gunn’s script for The Suicide Squad draws heavily from Jon Ostrander and Kim Yale’s ’80s run, rather than the more recent New 52 iteration that inspired” the first Suicide Squad.

In the 1980s, Deadshot wasn’t the conflicted criminal struggling to raise his daughter that we saw in the first film. Instead, he was someone with a death wish – a character with suicidal tendencies, willing to take extremely dangerous, life-threatening risks. Ostrander and Yale’s run delved into his backstory:

A child of abusive parents, a young Floyd Lawton and his brother Edward were drawn into a plot to assassinate their father, George, by their mother who had been paralyzed at George’s hands. Floyd backs out at the last minute but accidentally fires a shot that kills his brother. It’s this act that awakens Floyd to the fact that he cares nothing about life, even when it concerns the people he cares about. Years later, Deadshot is contracted by his mother to finish off his father, when his therapist, Marnie Herrs, who he has developed romantic feelings for interferes, he paralyzes her, a decision that highlights his feelings for her but his ultimate inability to move past violence and develop a sense of empathy.

This is much darker than the character we saw in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films were primarily comedic in nature, but the filmmaker has never been afraid to go to dark places, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case here as well. It will certainly take The Suicide Squad in a whole new direction, and help distance it from the 2016 film.

The Suicide Squad opens August 6, 2021.