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Who do you kill? Why do you kill them? These are the kinds of tough questions only storytellers can ask without getting arrested, and they’re exactly the kinds of questions James Gunn had to wrestle with while writing The Suicide Squad, which he talks about in a new interview on the official DC Comics blog. Don’t worry–there are no spoilers to be had here.

“There were a certain number of characters that I knew were going to die from the time I put them in the movie,” Gunn said. “When I first pitched this idea to Warner Bros., I went into [Warner Bros. Film Chairman] Toby Emmerich’s office and I had made copies or made photos of every single character and I had them all on a wall because it’s a lot of characters. To throw, like, Mongal at Toby Emmerich can be really confusing. Going through them in that way, I knew some characters were going to die early and then other characters died as I told the story.”

“Some things happened very organically. It was really about what does the story need at this point. How does it work? How do we take a turn here that’s unexpected?” Gunn continued. “That manifests in a number of ways, with character choice being the starting point.

“I have a file folder full of all the characters I initially considered and there’s everyone from Gunhawk to Man-Bat to Bane to Deathstroke,” Gunn said. “Man-Bat is one of my favorite characters, so I really wanted to do Man-Bat, but I think I chose Weasel and King Shark instead. There are a lot of characters who I love in the DC Universe. The DC Universe is just such an incredibly rich trove of characters and to be able to choose was very difficult.”

“Some of them were almost random,” Gunn said, seeming to question his own judgment as he dug into his process. “Like why did I do Javelin? I still can’t remember why I chose Javelin. I think I just thought it was so stupid that his weapon was a javelin. He seemed so useless!”

Others, though, grew as he wrote.

“Characters like Polka-Dot Man,” Gunn explained. “He has a reputation as being useless, but ends up being probably the most powerful character in the whole movie. Taking a character like that, who’s a joke and who’s thought of as a joke and looking behind the curtain and seeing that he’s so sad. He’s Polka-Dot Man for a really tragic and sad reason. You’re giving depth to something.”

Gunn outlined his approach to developing characters for movies like this and the Guardians of the Galaxy films.

“Usually with most of the characters I’ve written, I’m sort of recreating them for the screen. It’s probably one of the reasons why I’m attracted to characters like Star-Lord–who never really had a well-defined personality in the comic books–where you can kind of recreate them for the screen. I mean, Bloodsport isn’t especially well-known. And so, when I take him to the screen, he becomes this sort of Bill Munny Unforgiven character. With Harley, she is really well-drawn in the comics, and so I just wanted to be true to that.”

“It’s a story that is first and foremost about characters above all else,” Gunn said of The Suicide Squad. “It’s about a group of ne’er-do-wells who aren’t very good at connecting with other human beings and find through this pretty tragic experience small ways of connecting. In the end, it’s bittersweet because some of them are going on to a better life and then some of them are going on to no life at all.”

The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6. In the meantime, make sure to check out our review of the film, as well as our interview with Gunn about why The Suicide Squad might not be the movie you think it is. Gunn recently spoke about what he learned from being fired by Disney a few years back, why the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game might not make a good movie, and why he wants to do a Marvel/DC crossover flick (even if it almost certainly won’t happen).

The previously announced dramatic re-interpretation of the popular ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is getting new co-showrunners in T.J. Brady (The 100) and Rasheed Newson (Narcos). This news comes via The Hollywood Reporter, which is also reporting that Chris Collins (The Wire) is stepping down from his post as showrunner and executive producer on the series.

It’s unknown what involvement Collins may now have with the developing series, but Brady and Newson were already working with him on the project previously. No cast members have yet been announced for the series, and it’s also unknown if any of the original series cast members will appear. (A reunion aired last fall, indicating many of the original cast members still have a fondness for the series.) However, there’s still reason to expect this to see the light of day–The Hollywood Reporter is also indicating that the series will debut on Peacock sometime in 2022, with a two-season order.

The concept originated from a four-minute viral clip that was originally posted in March 2019 by Kansas City filmmaker Morgan Cooper. The clip, which you can watch above, quickly picked up steam and turned out to be a breakthrough video for Cooper, who has been collaborating with Will Smith on the series. (You can watch a longer, nine-minute video from Smith offering his feelings and reactions to the clip here.)

According to a release, Bel-Air is a serialized adaptation “that leans into the original premise: Will’s complicated journey from the streets of West Philadelphia to the gated mansions of Bel-Air. With a re-imagined vision, Bel-Air will dive deeper into the inherent conflicts, emotions and biases that were impossible to fully explore in a 30-minute sitcom format, while still delivering swagger and nods to the original show.”

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Activision Blizzard’s second quarter earnings call began with CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the elephant in the room: what the company is doing in light of a recent state of California lawsuit that alleges the company is rife with harassment and discrimination directed at women employees.

At the top of the call, Kotick issued the following statement addressing the lawsuit.

“I want to start by making clear to everyone that there is no place at our company where discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind will be tolerated–nowhere,” Kotick said. “We so appreciate the current and former employees who have come forward in past and recent days with courage, and I want to reiterate the commitments we have made to you. Our work environment, everywhere we operate, will not permit discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment. We will be the company that sets the example for this in our industry.”

He emphasized the company would be investigating every claim and complaint, and would take “decisive action.”

“People will be held accountable for their actions,” he said. “That commitment means that we will not just terminate employees where appropriate, but we’ll also terminate any manager or leader found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences.”

Kotick also pointed towards a company commitment to diversity in hiring, saying more resources would be allocated to emphasize it, as well as taking steps to ensure Activision Blizzard employees are paid “competently and fairly for equal or substantially similar work.”

But the lawsuit and what Activision Blizzard was doing in light of its allegations was a recurring theme throughout the earnings call’s prepared remarks and Q&A, with questions in regard to company morale and how the lawsuit may affect game production asked alongside questions about Call of Duty and yearly revenues. Activision Blizzard chief operating officer Daniel Alegre echoed Kotick’s commitment to diversity during the Q&A portion of the call, telling investors “our employees are truly our greatest asset, and we remain absolutely focused as a leadership team on providing a diverse and safe environment for our teams, and have taken a number of actions thus far.”

An earnings call press release includes a section titled “Commitment to a Safe Working Environment” and states the company is taking “swift action to ensure a swift and welcoming work environment for all employees.”

Along with creating safe spaces moderated by third parties where employees can voice their concerns, that “swift action” will also include the hiring of a law firm, WilmerHale, to conduct a review of the company’s policies and procedures “to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace.”

WilmerHale has been heavily criticized by a group of Activision Blizzard employees who organized an open letter decrying the company’s response to the lawsuit. The group, calling itself the ABK Workers Alliance, says the fact that WilmerHale has a history of “discouraging workers’ rights and collective action,” as well as having “pre-existing relationships with Activision Blizzard and its executives,” means the company should be seeking a different firm to review its policies.

The earnings call press release states that “managers and leaders across the company will be evaluated in respect to compliance with the company’s processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences.” It was announced today that Activision Blizzard president J. Allen Brack would be leaving the company, as would Blizzard’s head of human resources Jesse Meschuk. Brack will be replaced by two co-leaders in Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra.

Blizzard employees were in an uproar last year as they shared and compared pay data that revealed pay increases were significantly less than many expected, despite Activision Blizzard’s record profits. Earlier this year, Vice reported Activision Blizzard was looking to get out of a rule that would require the company to interview and consider diverse candidates including qualified women and minority candidates, with lawyers for the company calling the diversity requirement “an unworkable encroachment on the Company’s ability to run its business.”

The ABK Workers Alliance say their demands have yet to be directly addressed by the company. Those demands include an end to forced arbitration in employment agreements, adoption of inclusive recruitment and hiring practices, increases in pay transparency through compensation metrics, and an audit of Activision Blizzard policies and practices by a neutral third-party selected by an employee-led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task force.

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The head of Blizzard’s human resources department became the second executive to leave the company today in the wake of a recently filed discrimination lawsuit. As reported by Bloomberg, Jesse Meschuk, the company’s head of global human resources, has now departed the company, shortly after Blizzard president J. Allen Brack also left the company.

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson confirmed to GameSpot that “Jesse Meschuk is no longer with the company,” but declined to comment further. There has been no official word regarding whether the departures of Meschuk and Brack are a result of Activision Blizzard taking action.

It also appears that Meschuk deleted his Twitter account, although it’s unknown exactly when that happened. Meschuk was not named directly in the lawsuit like Brack was; however, the lawsuit alleged that Blizzard’s HR department was complicit in the harassment of employees.

The lawsuit, filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in July, alleged that victims of harassment were “discouraged from complaining as human resource personnel were known to be close to alleged harassers.” In a report from Axios, a dozen current and former Activision Blizzard employees said that not only did the company’s HR department not help victims, it actively discounted and dismissed them. One of the people quoted by Axios said HR would regularly respond to attempted reports of harassment with statements such as, “This isn’t a fight you want.”

“We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a letter responding to the allegations. “Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated.”

A Shareholder also filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, claiming that the company made “false and misleading” statements about the ongoing investigation by California. Activision Blizzard employees also staged a walkout last week, demanding the company make changes and address the accusations brought forth in the lawsuit.