James Gunn claims he was given free rein to kill off whichever characters he wanted in 'The Suicide Squad'.

The 54-year-old actor has told fans "anything could happen" after taking to Twitter to ask which main characters in the movie - the forthcoming sequel to 2016's 'Suicide Squad' - will most likely survive, and he said DC gave him freedom to "do what [he] wanted" on the motion picture.

He wrote: "What two characters do you think are most likely to survive #TheSuicideSquad?"

In response to a fan who suggested Harley Quinn, King Shark and Amanda Waller had franchise "protection", he replied: "No character was protected by DC. They gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted. That was one of the things we agreed to before I came to work for them. I wasn't looking for shock value but I wanted the audience to know anything could happen. #StoryReignsSupreme #TheSuicideSquad (sic)"

Gunn admitted he still receives "hate messages" from trolls for killing off Michael Rooker's character Yondu Udonta in 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2', but he insisted any character death is an "integral" part of the story.

He wrote: "There are angry fans no matter what choice you make. I still get hate messages for Yondu dying in #GotGVol2 & Boltie  in SUPER. Yet their deaths were integral to the stories (&, for the record, I get a lot MORE messages from folks saying how deeply those deaths affected them). (sic)"

And Gunn insisted Yondu will not be back in a future 'Guardians of the Galaxy' movie, unless it is part of a flashback scene.

In a series of tweets, he wrote: "I get sometimes you can bring back characters in a cool way. But usually, if a character dies, & it's a meaningful part of the story, the character should stay dead. So unless it's a flashback, Yondu will stay dead, as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise, it ruins his sacrifice.

"It really sucks having to tell an actor you're killing a character they play, especially if they played the character in another film, or if they didn't die in a first draft. Most of them do not want to die, but every one I've told has been mature about it. (sic)"