The early years of the DC Extended Universe were a bit rocky. Suicide Squad was only the third movie to come out as part of the DCEU and while the film made $746 million at the box office, it was critically panned, reaching only 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. The production of the film is notorious, as Warner Bros. had director David Ayer change up the film quite a bit with reshoots. What fans ended up getting was a film that felt like two different movies trying to be one.
With the success of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there has been fan support for an “Ayer Cut” of Suicide Squad. Perhaps the performance that was most affected by the studio’s version of the film was Jared Leto’s as the Joker. Leto recently decided to throw his support behind a release of the Ayer Cut. Ayer himself took note of Leto’s comments and stated that streaming exists so something like the Ayer Cut can see the light of day.
Ayer has said in the past that he had to cut the first 40 minutes of the film because of Warner Bros. However, he’s also come out and said that his version of the film is already completed, he’d just need some visual effects work done.
The biggest problem facing a possible Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad is that Warner Bros. is just a few months removed from releasing James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Though not technically a sequel or a reboot of Ayer’s film, it does contain some of his original cast, most notably Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Gunn’s film was much better received by critics and it’s feasible that the studio would prefer to pretend that Ayer’s film doesn’t exist.
Suicide Squad is available to stream now on HBO Max, if you dare.