First, there was the Snyder Cut and now the Ayer Cut? Training Day scribe David Ayer may have had his name attached to 2016’s critically-hated Suicide Squad but he is now confirming to the world that a director’s cut of the movie that is different from the version we got in theaters apparently does exist and he’s even screened it for somebody.
The news comes to us via Twitter when a user called @RTAyerCutSS claimed: “I had the honour of being shown ‘The Cut’ by @DavidAyerMovies No bs. 2hrs 23m of incredible! A totally different story! Forget the theatrical. This movie has a deeper message.”
Ayer confirmed this claim by retweeting the post with a GIF of Steve Carell saying “Facts.”
Ayer has long hinted that his director’s cut of the movie would have been much better than the theatrical cut and some deleted scenes have even surfaced online in recent years. However, this latest development possibly represents the first official confirmation that a fully assembled alternate cut that can be viewed by others actually exists.
While Ayer still had his name attached as director of 2016’s Suicide Squad, director Zack Snyder saw a similar butchering of his work that was eventually released with a different director credited to it: the 2017 Joss Whedon-directed Justice League. Snyder had exited the production of the film in the midst of a family tragedy, with Whedon brought on mid-production to come and shoot new scenes and make the film his own, for better or worse.
After that, a fan campaign to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut launched. The world wasn’t totally sure if an alternative movie by Snyder even existed in the first place, let alone possibly being released one day. That all changed when HBO Max exclusively released Zack Snyder’s Justice League in 2021, which garnered much higher critical acclaim than its predecessor, and gratefully without Henry Cavill’s uncanny computer-animated upper lip to hide his mustache in sight.
Before the Snyder Cut was released, we would have thought the Ayer Cut coming out an impossibility, especially since a James Gunn-helmed sequel, 2021’s The Suicide Squad, was released to theaters to much higher critical acclaim. But in a post-ZSJL world, anything seems possible. Though we will admit, we’re not entirely sure if releasing more scenes of Jared Leto’s Joker will actually be a service to the world.
Another hurdle that may encumber the release of the Ayer Cut is the fact that since ZSJL‘s release, Warner Bros. has merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery. That company’s newly-minted CEO, David Zaslav, has proved ruthless when it comes to halting near-completed movies, such as choosing to shelve Batgirl earlier this year. A budget-minded boss of the movie studio may not be so prone to front the money to actually release the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad in an official capacity.
