With Zack Snyder’s much-anticipated (as if) cut of Justice League officially in the works and marked for release on HBO Max, attention has turned to a potential re-cutting of another of DC’s cinematic misadventures, 2016’s widely panned Suicide Squad. The film was the subject of drastic last-minute reshoots in the wake of Batman V Superman’s critical mauling earlier that year, reshoots that likely contributed to its messy landing. That left fans with the sense that the movie director David Ayer originally wanted to make didn’t see the light of the day.
Emboldened by the Snyder Cut movement’s success, those fans have been engaging with Ayer on Twitter about the possibility that an “Ayer Cut” could be released on HBO Max in the same manner. His response? Let’s say he’s game for it. In a tweet posted today, he said:
This is a good question. My cut would be easy to complete. It would be incredibly cathartic for me. It’s exhausting getting your ass kicked for a film that got the Edward Scissorhands treatment. The film I made has never been seen. https://t.co/FkeHAlNoV0
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) May 25, 2020
I’ve never disguised my ambivalence toward any recuts of DCEU movies. Would they have been more coherent? In Zack Snyder’s case almost certainly not – I mean, did you see Batman V Superman? The guy couldn’t plot his way through a field. As for Ayer, the jury’s out. Warner Bros. freaked out over BvS, and whatever their “Edward Scissorhands” treatment of Suicide Squad did to try and prevent the same mistakes from happening, it clearly didn’t work. But at best, Ayer’s cut will elevate an unwatchable film into a mediocre one. Talk about marginal degrees of pointlessness.
Anyway, just as with Justice League, a groundswell of passionate, indeed vociferous fans want to see it happen, and importantly, David Ayer does, too. So, an Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad might be on the cards yet.
