Joel Kinnaman in early Suicide Squad negotiations

Rumor has it that Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) is in early negotiations to replace Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg in the upcoming Suicide Squad film. Hardy was scheduled to play the group's leader, but he backed out a couple weeks ago due to scheduling conflicts and apparently he had issues with the script, too.

Kinnaman hit the big scene after starring in AMC's The Killing and he was the male lead in the recent RoboCop reboot. I didn't see either the show or the movie, so I have no opinion on whether he would be a good replacement for Tom Hardy. If he does wind up getting the role he will join the existing cast of Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Jai Courtney, and Cara Delevigne.

Tom Hardy exits Suicide Squad

This was bound to happen at least once. It seems like with every major project these days there is a casting issue at some point. We learned today that Tom Hardy has dropped out of the upcoming Suicide Squad film. Hardy was set to play the team's military trained leader, Rick Flagg. His reps are citing scheduling problems and overlaps are to blame as he will soon begin press for Mad Max: Fury Road and filming on The Revenant is running long.

However, rumor has it that Warner Bros. has approached Oscar-nominee Jake Gyllenhaal to replace Hardy as Flagg. There is no confirmation on any replacement just yet, and it seems that Viola Davis still isn't 100% attached either, so I would expect things might continue to change with this film. Suicide Squad is currently set to open August 5, 2016 and also stars (as of right now) Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevinge, and Will Smith.

It's a bummer, but I always thought Hardy was an odd choice seeing that he's already played a DC villain and is very well recognized as such. I was a bit surprised he was chosen in the first place.