Last week director David Ayer said he was done with DC and his Director’s Cut of Suicide Squad. Well, he’s still talking about it and he says that he would love a one-off “funeral screening” of the film to help him get some closure and move on. Clearly, he is having a really hard time moving on from the project and his experience of what happened with it really messed him up! During a recent interview with Variety, the filmmaker said:
“That’s been the toughest part of my career. 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.”
He went on to talk about the criticisms he’s received for the film, saying:
“Every time a new movie comes out in that space it starts up again. 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.”
When asked about the possibility of a one-off screening, Ayer said:
“I would love a ‘last rites’ screening. 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.”
I think that sounds fair. But, if he actually got to screen that version, WB might as well release it! Ayer previously shared that new DC Studios boss James Gunn told him the Ayer Cut “would have its time to be shared,” but who knows if anything will ever come of that.
When previously asked about his biggest Hollywood heartbreak, Ayer went on to explain that Suicide Squad broke him, saying: “Hollywood — I tell people — is like watching someone you love get f**ked by someone you hate. The big one is ‘Suicide Squad.’ That shit broke me. That handed me my ass. Come right off ‘Fury,’ right? I had the town in my hand — could’ve done anything, and I did do anything, and [I] go on this journey with [‘Suicide Squad’]. And the same thing — authentic, truthful, let’s do all the rehearsal, let’s really get in each other’s souls. Let’s create this amazing, collaborative thing, right? And then ‘Deadpool’ opened, right? And they never tested ‘Batman v. Superman,’ so they were expecting a different result, and then they got hammered by all the critics. Then it’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to turn David Ayer’s dark, soulful movie into a f**king comedy now.’”
When talking about his original cut of the film, the director said: “All I know is my unseen film plays much better than the studio release. The interest in my cut being show seems real and organic. And Gunn told me it would have it’s time to be shared. He absolutely deserves to launch his DC universe without more drama about old projects. In a way I’m chained to this thing. I’m riding a tiger here and navigating this situation the best I can. Life is a very strange journey.”
Do you think Ayer’s Suicide Squad will ever see the light of day?