David Ayer recently sat down with Jon Bernthal on his podcast Real Ones and inevitably the subject of his Suicide Squad cropped up for which Dave said it was his biggest heartbreak in Hollywood.
He explains:
“Hollywood, I tell people, is like watching someone you love get fucked by someone you hate. The big one is Suicide Squad. That shit broke me. That handed me my ass.
I come right off Fury, right? I had the town in my hand, could’ve done anything, and I did do anything. And I go on this journey with Suicide Squad. And the same thing — authentic, truthful, let’s do all the rehearsal, let’s really get in each other’s souls. Let’s create this amazing, collaborative thing, right? And then Deadpool opened and they never tested Batman v Superman so they were expecting a different result, and then they got hammered by all the critics. Then it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to turn David Ayer’s dark, soulful movie into a fucking comedy now.’”
I’m not too familiar with all of Ayer’s work but I know the man who gave us Fury, Street Kings, and was the screenwriter for Training Day, must have delivered a movie that was a thousand times better than the “studio cut” we got of Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, it was another in a long, long list of DC projects where studio execs couldn’t help but get their grubby little fingers on and fuck it up.
Release The Ayer Cut
Yes, #ReleaseTheAyerCut is a thing, much like Zack Snyder’s Justice League. After the continued string of fiasco coming from Warner Bros and DC since they decided to try and kill the Snyderverse, the Ayer Cut is starting to make some real noise. Ayer recently shared on social media that James Gunn told him his cut of Suicide Squad would see the light of day someday. However, little Jimmy Gunn has a track record of saying one thing and then doing the polar opposite.
Dave says:
“All I know is my unseen film plays much better than the studio release. The interest in my cut being shown seems real and organic. And 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. In a way, I’m chained to this thing. I’m riding a tiger here and navigating this situation the best I can. Life is a very strange journey.”
I’ve only seen Suicide Squad once and even though I didn’t really care for it, I could see moments of greatest trying to get through. I would love to see The Ayer Cut, and if history has shown us anything of late from WB and DC, it’s that the director’s vision is always better than the studio version.
Suicidal Box Office Takings
Despite its negative reviews, Ayer’s Suicide Squad did well at the box office and earned $747 million worldwide. Now I’ve bleated on and on about how box office takings are not an indicator of the movie’s quality. However, since WB and DC decided to listen to the noisy Marvel Kids whine about DC instead of listening to their actual fanbase, they have had flop after flop after flop.
Wonder Woman 84 made $169M. The Suicide Squad also earned $169M. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey scraped in $205M. Shazam: Fury of The Gods made £134M. Black Adam pulled in $393M (large thanks to Cavill’s return as Superman). The Flash made $269M, and Blue Beetle is currently sitting at $81M. So all in all, that brings seven movies since Suicide Squid earned a combined $1.42Bn at the box office, which is just under double what one movie made back when things for DC were relatively good before they panicked.
So the big question to WB and DC execs is if you wanted to attract the Marvel fans, where aren’t the Marvel fans showing up to your movies?
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