The Suicide Squad reveals first trailer

This will be the second installment of the Suicide Squad. Photo / Youtube

Warner Bros has revealed the first trailer for James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, and it promises to be as wacky and irreverent as you'd expect from the director of The Guardians of the Galaxy.

With an absolutely stacked cast including Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis, Peter Capaldi and Michael Rooker, the trailer for the DC movie gives fans a taste of what's to come when the film is released on August 5 in Australia.

Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn. Photo / Youtube

There's going to be quips, dick jokes, a King Shark that goes nom nom on a human snack, Harley Quinn's (totally justified) promise of death if she finds out you have personalised licence plates, and Pete Davidson wearing orange Crocs. Oh, and a kaiju. What a world.

Wait, wasn't there already a Suicide Squad movie, you ask?

Why yes, there was. It came out in 2016 and it was directed by David Ayres and also featured Robbie, Davis, Jai Courtney and Joel Kinnaman playing the same characters in a story about a group of imprisoned villains who take on missions for the government in exchange for a reduced sentence.

The Suicide Squad – spot the difference yet, it's the "The" – started as a sequel to the 2016 movie and went through several mooted directors and writers before Gunn was hired right after he was sacked by Disney for some old tweets (Disney has since rehired Gunn and he is working on the third Guardians of the Galaxy instalment).

Gunn's The Suicide Squad is neither a direct sequel nor a reboot of Ayres' film, rather a stand-alone that apparently won't contradict the continuity of the 2016 movie.

But the tone is expected to be very different from its predecessor – even Kinnaman said his character Rick Flag will much sillier than the version he portrayed in the earlier Suicide Squad.

The cast also features David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Alice Braga, plus some high-profile names that didn't appear in this first trailer including Sylvestor Stallone, Taika Waititi, Nathan Fillion and Storm Reid.

John Cena as Peacemaker. Photo / Facebook

With the addition of new characters to The Suicide Squad such as Cena's Peacemaker, a character Cena described as "a douchey Captain America", some of the old guard from 2016 have been cut such as Jay Hernandez's El Diablo and Karen Fukuhara's Kantana.

The most glaring omission is Will Smith's Deadshot, who is not returning because of Smith's scheduling conflict. Elba had originally been recast as Deadshot before it was decided he would play a different character called Bloodsport.

The Suicide Squad is part of the DC Extended Universe of movies which also includes Shazam, Wonder Woman, Joker, Birds of Prey, Justice League and the upcoming Batman movie directed by Matt Reeves. Unlike Marvel films, DCEU movies don't necessarily share narrative continuity with each other.