Suicide Squad director David Ayer has already given up on the "Ayer Cut" once, only to then begin campaigning for the movie's release in the wake of both Zack Snyder's Justice League debuting on Max and Warner Bros. Discovery's decision to form DC Studios.
For a time, he seemed convinced his original director's cut of the 2016 movie would see the light of day. The filmmaker even hinted that James Gunn had promised it to him, only to recently backtrack and make it clear, "I'm done with DC" (suggesting Ayer may have received some news he didn't like).
We thought that was the end of it. However, doing the rounds to promote The Beekeeper, Ayer once again praised his original vision for Suicide Squad.
"That’s been the toughest part of my career," he told Variety. "I made a great movie. I made an amazing film. I’ll go on record. Anyone wants to dispute that: Come look me in the eye. To have something I put so much love and so much heart into get taken away, reengineered...you know that Eric Andre meme where he shoots the guy and says, ‘Why’d you do that?’ That’s been like ‘Suicide Squad.’ ‘Why’d you do that?’ I didn’t."
"Every time a new movie comes out in that space it starts up again," Ayer said of the way Suicide Squad is now widely considered one of the worst DCEU movies. "I get attacked for something that I didn’t do. It’s pretty unjust, and at the end of the day, at this point, I get it, it’s corporate America. It’s corporate IP. You know these are multi-billion dollar companies, but I think ripping the guts out of a filmmaker like that is is pretty unfair."
It is unfair and a shame Ayer didn't get to release the version of the movie he wanted. However, he isn't the first director to be overruled by a studio and despite boasting a lowly 26% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Suicide Squad earned $747 million worldwide and gave us Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn; those aren't bad achievements.
Despite recently acknowledging that the world won't get to see his version of the movie, Ayer would go on to share his belief that he at least deserves a funeral screening (it does, however, seem unlikely actors such as Robbie and Will Smith are desperate to see a different cut of a project they worked on close to a decade ago).
"I would love a ‘last rites’ screening," he says. "A funeral screening, you know, even just bringing the cast and crew together to show them what they actually made. That that would be fair for everyone."
Suicide Squad is currently streaming on Max and Netflix.