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.