i want you to hit me as hard as you can... At a time when Marvel was dominating and DC was still
trying to figure it out, along came a merry bunch of criminals called the Suicide Squad.
They had one job: save the world or die trying. So how did a movie with a strong ensemble cast,
an experienced filmmaker and one of the most iconic villains in comic book history fail to
hit the target? Grab your favorite bat and take a swing at what the [ __ ] happened to this movie!
The year 1989 ushered in a new era of comic book blockbusters with Tim Burton's Batman,
showcasing a darker tone while still appealing to a mass audience.
That influence carried through the 1990s with comic adaptations like The Crow,
Spawn and Blade, but the notorious Batman and Robin was a nipple-suited speedbump for comic
movies, while Marvel was busy selling off its most prized characters to various studios in
order to avoid bankruptcy. Then after the turn of the century, the release of X-men and Spider-Man
demonstrated that comic book franchises were still viable at the box office. This prompted
Warner Bros., the owners of DC Comics, to relaunch one of their biggest properties.
The studio turned to up-and-coming filmmaker Christopher Nolan to craft a new take on the Dark
Knight. The massive worldwide success of Nolan's vision, further elevated by an unforgettable and
award-winning Heath Ledger performance, showed that comic book movies were back in a big way.
Around this time, Marvel Studios had begun looking through the remaining characters they still held
the rights to, searching for a new hero to thrust onto the big screen. Enter... Iron Man. And with
it, two minutes that would change movies for the foreseeable future. Because once the end
credits finished rolling on that 2008 release we witnessed Nick Fury break into Tony Stark's
house to inform him of the Avengers Initiative, giving birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
If you're asking yourself what does that have to do with Suicide Squad, the simple answer is:
well, a lot! With Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy wrapping up, Warner Bros was searching for
their next big franchise and realized they were sitting on a veritable gold mine of famous and not
so famous DC superheroes. Writer David S Goyer had pitched a new Superman film to Christopher Nolan,
who with some of his own tweaks took the idea to Warner Bros and Zack Snyder was hired to direct
the film. Even though Man of Steel was conceived as a standalone story, Snyder would lay minimal
groundwork for a shared universe with easter eggs like a glimpse of a Wayne Enterprises satellite.
When talks of a Man of Steel sequel began, Snyder and the studio saw the monstrous prophets of
Marvel's interconnected universe as a sign that audiences were ready for a cohesive DC movie
universe. And so at San Diego Comic-Con in 2013 Zack Snyder announced that the follow-up to Man
of Steel would not be Man of Steel 2 but rather a team-up of two of the most popular characters
ever created, Batman and Superman. While Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice prepared to launch the
DC Extended Universe, the studio was already looking for the next property to include.
They settled on Suicide Squad, a title they had been trying to adapt since 2009.
The movie would be based on John Sstrander's comic series about captured C-list villains
performing high-risk missions to reduce their prison sentences. As usual for big expensive
tentpole movies, a release date is announced years in advance to claim a certain weekend.
For Suicide Squad that was August 5th 2016, just four months after Batman v Superman was
set to hit screens. The expectation was that a showdown between those A-list heroes would
surely be a billion dollar hit and could help carry the lesser-known characters of Suicide
Squad to their own box office success while also setting the stage for the ultimate DC comic movie,
Justice League. David Ayer, then known primarily for gritty dramatic thrillers like Training Day,
Harsh Times and End of Watch, was hired in late 2014 to write and direct this collection of
comic book villains. With the release date set in stone and promotional deals already made,
Ayer only had a few weeks to write his script in order to stay on track for the strict deadline.
When it was time to cast this band of misfits, Tom Hardy was originally set to play military leader
Rick Flag but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with The Revenant, which had run
far over schedule. The studio then went to Ayer's End of Watch star Jake Gyllenhaal, who declined
their offer outright. They finally landed on the recently rebooted Robocop Joel Kinnaman. There
were more challenges trying to cast cold-hearted government official Amanda Waller, with the role
first offered to Oprah Winfrey. Octavia Spencer was also considered until they became aware that
respected actor Viola Davis had expressed interest in playing the ruthless character.
Even though it now seems unimaginable for anyone but Margot Robbie to embody flexible psychiatrist
turned psychopath Harley Quinn, that wasn't the studio's original intention. They had offered the
role to Emma Roberts, who turned it down to star in the short-lived show Scream Queens. whoops...
The role of expert assassin Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, was the hardest to cast. The studio had
several names on their wish list including Jon Hamm, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Matt Damon.
Ultimately they ended up scoring Will Smith. Ayer originally wanted his Fury co-star Shia Labeouf
to play navy seal GQ Edwards but the actor said the studio rejected the idea and the role went
to Scott Eastwood. Labeouf later said that the GQ character and a number of other supporting roles
were reduced to add more scenes for Smith's Deadshot, much to the dismay of David Ayer,
who saw the film as more of a Dirty Dozen-style collaboration rather than a star vehicle for any
one performer. The rest of the disposable Task Force X members were filled out by
Jai Courtney as rowdy Aussie Captain Boomerang, Adewale Akinnouye Agbaje as reptilian cannibal
Killer Croc, Jay Hernandez as flamethrowing gangbanger El Diablo, Karen Fukuhara as Flag's
deadly sword-swinging bodyguard Katana, and Cara Delevingne as the dark magic entity Enchantress.
Last but certainly not least was the iconic role of the Joker. The studio originally offered the
clown prince of crime to Ryan Gosling, who passed because he did not want to sign onto a project
that had clear plans for sequels. So they turned to recent Academy Award winner Jared Leto to put
his own twist on the demented criminal. With the primary cast in place and a release date looming,
a shortened period of rehearsals began before cameras rolled in April 2015. It seems Ayer had an
interesting take on this process, inviting some of the actors to his house to engage in fist fights,
saying "you learn about who a person really is when you punch them in the face."
Sure that's totally normal... He also reportedly told Cara Delevingne that the key to unlocking her
character's movements was to go out into the woods by herself and walk naked under the full moon,
which apparently she did for whatever that was worth. Ayer also brought in a
police interrogator to grill the cast so he could find out some of their deepest darkest secrets,
and then when they were filming he would bring up those profoundly personal matters in order to
draw a performance out of his actors, and he would blame the Joker. Of course no one made
more headlines than Jared Leto and his off-screen antics. An admitted Method actor, Leto refused to
rehearse with the rest of the cast as he wanted to keep the isolation between the characters fresh.
The gifts that Leto sent to the cast have almost become more famous than the film itself. He sent
a live rat to Margot Robbie, with other cast members receiving boxes full of dirty magazines,
sex toys and most unpleasant of all, used condoms. It was also reported that one day while the entire
cast was at a table read, Leto hired a henchman to enter and say "special delivery from Mr. J" before
dumping a bullet-riddled pig carcass on the table. What fun! Ayer seemingly loved Leto's commitment
to the character and approved of the vulgar shenanigans, saying "the Joker is something you
have to be." Every actor on the team physically pushed themselves to their limits with martial
arts and firearms training, weightlifting and fight choreography, with Margot Robbie performing
gymnastics and even learning to hold her breath for nearly five minutes for the underwater scene.
Of course it wasn't all super serious on the set, like when David Ayer made the mistake of entering
Jai Courtney's trailer while the actor was butt naked, prompting Courtney to playfully chase his
director around the set in his birthday suit. The actors and crew also seemed to enjoy their bonding
experience enough to give each other matching SKWAD tattoos, which in hindsight may not have
been a sound decision. At San Diego Comic Con in 2015 fans were treated to their first glimpse of
Suicide Squad with a trailer that had a darker tone. A bootlegged version leaked online within
hours of its debut, resulting in Warner Bros officially releasing the footage days later.
This set fan anticipation through the roof. Ayer would later tweet that this footage was a
closer representation of his original vision for the film. But in March 2016 Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice was released and it failed to meet Warner Bros expectations by not hitting
the billion dollars they had anticipated. It also received lukewarm reviews for the movie's
predominantly grim tone. This infuriated the studio's then CEO Kevin Tsujihara,
who feared the disappointing response to the big screen meeting between two of the world's most
recognizable superheroes had irrevocably damaged their entire DC brand. Tsujihara looked at the
reactions to another recently released comic book adaptation that had garnered much praise:
Deadpool. His takeaway was that audiences were clamoring for a more amusing take on the material,
so he brought in the team at Trailer Park to cut together a new teaser for Suicide Squad,
resulting in the well-received Bohemian Rhapsody trailer. The movie also underwent
expensive reshoots around this time, with rumors that the goal was to lighten the overall tone and
add more humor. David Ayer refuted this at the time but has since admitted that scenes were
re-shot because they were initially considered too dark, particularly Joker's torture of Harley.
After the success of the new trailer, Tsujihara decided to go behind his director's back and
actually hired the Trailer Park team to re-edit the entire film in order to make it more like the
trailer they cut. They took a cue from the success of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and how it
handled mostly unknown comic characters by using prolonged introductions and popular rock songs.
And they weren't messing around with the familiar music - Suicide Squad has four different needle
drops in just the first five minutes. Ayer became aware that the studio had two cuts of the film,
his darker version with more focus on the Joker as the primary antagonist,
and the studio's much lighter take with over an hour of Leto's Joker removed, shifting him from
the main villain to a secondary character with no real purpose. If you were in Northern California
in 2016 you may have been among the few who got a chance to see Ayer's cut of the film
as the studio ran several test screenings of the competing cuts to see which version tested better.
Reactions to the original cut made their way online with people loving the amped up roles
for both Joker and Batman. When the theatrical version was eventually released those same people
noted that the altered cut was vastly inferior to the version they had originally seen. In the end,
Warner Bros decided that neither cut was 100% right and decided to mash the two together,
creating a confused final product that whiplashes between Ayer's darker tone and the studio's more
humorous take. Ayer said that he understood the studio's business decision to lighten up
the film after Batman v Superman got accused of being too dark, but he added that Suicide Squad
was never meant to be in the vein of Deadpool and even described his version as a "soulful drama."
But he accepted that his name was on the film even if it wasn't actually the film he had made.
The cost of the production had eventually ballooned to 175 million dollars,
raising the risk and the studio's concerns. But despite the struggles behind the scenes,
Suicide Squad arrived on its August 5th 2016 release date. The general reception was more
negative than positive, with critics calling it baffling, incoherent and a wasted opportunity.
Many noted the senseless plot, in which mastermind Amanda Waller assembles a special supervillain
team whose first mission is to rescue her from a member of her own supervillain team. The movie was
also criticized for an undercurrent of sexism and misogyny, notably the abuse and objectification of
Harley Quinn and her literally toxic relationship with Joker. But the film defied those bad reviews
with a record-breaking domestic opening on the way to a worldwide total of nearly 750 million,
passing Man of Steel and the eventual box office for Justice League. Not bad for a troubled movie
featuring obscure characters. It also won an Academy Award for best makeup and hair styling,
so there's that. After the movie's release, Jared Leto expressed frustration that what he filmed was
not represented on the screen, claiming there was enough footage on the cutting room floor to
piece together an entire Joker film. Even details like the Joker's "damaged" tattoo had more depth
in the original cut, with Ayer explaining that after the villain killed Robin, Batman smashed
his teeth before dropping him at Arkham Asylum, and the Joker's forehead message was a reference
to how his smile was permanently damaged because of Batman. In response to the jumbled mess of the
final theatrical edit, Ayer simply responded "the timeline was changed after filming."
Other substantial differences reportedly included a climactic team-up between Joker and Enchantress,
a Deadshot and Harley romance, Katana becoming possessed and turning on the team,
and Diablo surviving the finale. And then in 2017 came Justice League. The dire box office take
and critical reception led to one of the biggest bombs in recent history.
After the turmoil behind the scenes was brought to light, ardent fans of Zack Snyder and the DC
movies pushed the hashtag #releasethesnydercut. At the time it was simply a rallying cry by
zealous fans to see the director's original vision, but it became an incessant demand.
By 2020 Kevin Tsujihara had exited the studio amid a scandal and was replaced by Ann Sarnoff as CEO.
The rise of streaming during the pandemic saw the launch of Warner's HBO Max and the company wanted
something unique that could attract an audience to this new service - something like the Snyder
cut of Justice League. In May of 2020 Zack Snyder confirmed that his version of Justice League would
indeed be released on HBO Max. Those relentless online fans would finally get what they wanted.
Of course once the Snyder cut actually became a reality those persistent fans then turned their
attention to Suicide Squad, trending the hashtag #releasetheayercut. Ayer himself joined in,
tweeting about the differences and stating that assembling his cut wouldn't take much time or
money. But Ann Sarnoff had the veto stamp, saying "we will not be developing David Ayer's cut."
The director replied on twitter by asking "why?" The simplest answer
could be that they have just moved on. When Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn
was temporarily fired by Disney, Warners pounced and hired him for a new version of the property,
dubbed The Suicide Squad. Not quite a sequel or strictly a reboot, the movie demonstrates that
the studio is no longer precious about maintaining its shared cinematic universe, allowing Gunn to
retain some of the original Suicide Squad cast but not necessarily their character continuity. Just
before the release of Gunn's movie, David Ayer posted one final heartfelt comment on twitter,
further distancing himself from the studio cut and describing his own version of Suicide Squad as
an intricate and emotional journey with some bad people. After a word of praise for Gunn's own spin
on the material, Ayer said he would no longer speak publicly on the matter. And with that,
it seems we will never see David Ayer's true vision of Suicide Squad... unless maybe one day
HBO Max is running low on comic material and needs a quick boost, and they check their vault to find
a whole lot of extra footage for Joker, Batman, Deadshot, Harley Quinn and the rest of Ayer's
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