The CW’s Arrowverse may be on the decline, but the DC Extended Universe of content over at HBO Max just keeps growing. The newest project may be a series about Machiavellian ARGUS director and emotionless Task Force X (aka the Suicide Squad) overseer Amanda Waller, with Viola Davis returning to play the character.
Variety reported the news that HBO was looking for a Peacemaker spin-off after the critical success and positive reception of the TV series as well as James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, both of which featured Davis as Waller. (She was also in the less successful, less positively received Suicide Squad movie in 2016.) According to Variety’s sources, “Exact plot details are mostly under wraps at this point, but sources say the show will build off of Waller’s appearance at the end of the Suicide Squad spinoff series Peacemaker.” This means the show would be set after Waller’s daughter Leota Adebayo (played by Danielle Brooks) had exposed the existence of Task Force X, the secret invasion by the alien “Butterflies,” and her mother’s involvement in both, all of which should make her job of protecting the world at every cost necessary much more difficult.
Still, a spin-off focused on Amanda Waller seems like an odd choice, even if you do have a star like Viola Davis in the role. Waller is cold, brutal, efficient, and a government stooge; it would be tough to root for her character in a TV series focused on her, and audiences certainly weren’t supposed to root for her in Peacemaker or the two Suicide Squad movies. Sure, Peacemaker was a bad guy in The Suicide Squad, but he already has a hurt little boy sort of charisma that allowed fans to accept his (quasi-)redemption arc in his show. Amanda Waller doesn’t have anything like that, or at least she’s not supposed to.
So would she be the head of a new Suicide Squad and send a different group of DC Comics C- and D-listers to their graves each episode? Or could there actually be a series starring Amanda Waller where she becomes a good guy? Sound off in the comments.
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Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.