The director’s edit of the 2016 movie “Suicide Squad” is still a topic of discussion for David Ayer. Early “Suicide Squad” cuts, according to the filmmaker, sparked rumors that he would soon take over DC Studios at Warner Bros, according to Jon Bernthal’s “Real Ones” podcast. “During a time, during ‘Suicide Squad,’ when the dailies were coming in, people were like ‘Oh shit, maybe Ayer’s going to take over DC,’” Ayer said. “It’s ‘Game of Thrones’ in there. The palace politics were insane.”
The quasi-sequel “The Suicide Squad” was later directed by James Gunn, who later joined Peter Safran as co-CEO of DC Studios. Ayer mentioned that Gunn has expressed support for maybe releasing the director’s cut of his “Suicide Squad” film. “They never tested my cut, and the thing is, I have it, I fucking have it, and if I didn’t, oh my God…” Ayer stated. “Everyone I’ve shown the cut has the same reaction: rage. Like, ‘This is the movie we wanted, why didn’t we get this? It’s like Schrödinger’s Cut now. Is it more legendary to see it or more legendary to not see it? I talked to James Gunn, and look…he’s trying to figure that whole mess out. They wanna get some scores on the board first, you know? I have, I show people, but it’s tough because I wanna fucking move on from it, I wanna heal from it.”
Ayer explained Warner Bros.’s choice to rework the movie at the time, which starred Jared Leto as the Joker and introduced Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. “‘Deadpool’ opened, and then they never tested ‘Batman v. Superman,’ so they put the movie out there and they never did a test,” Ayer said. “And they were expecting a different result, and then they got hammered by all the critics, and then it’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to turn David Ayer’s dark, soulful movie into a fucking comedy now.’”
Ayer acknowledged, “That shit broke me. That handed me my ass. Hollywood, I tell people, is like watching someone you love get fucked by someone you hate.” Recently, Ayer stated on Twitter that his adaptation of “Suicide Squad” might be released.
“All I know is my unseen film plays much better than the studio release,” Ayer wrote in part. “The interest in my cut being show[n] seems real and organic. And [James] Gunn told me it would have its time to be shared. He absolutely deserves to launch his DC universe without more drama about old projects.”
