It’s never a good idea to insult the people who control the ultimate fate of your movie. David Ayer doesn’t appear to have learned that lesson. Despite his Suicide Squad failing to have the same level of fanaticism as Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Ayer has repeatedly pushed to have the “Ayer Cut” of his movie released. To be fair, I desperately want to see this happen. But this is no way to go about it.
Speaking with Total Film (via GamesRadar), Ayer expressed confidence that his original cut of Suicide Squad would see the light of day. However, he couldn’t help but insult the suits at Warner Bros. for their cowardice, which to me seems an unproductive route to take…
“I think so. I’m going to be hopeful. You know, there are a lot of people that are invested in certain narratives that don’t want it to see the light of day. So there’s an immense political headwind against it, because if that cut were made public, the cowardliness and the whole just general shittiness of how the film’s been treated, and how the actors have had this great work that they’d done taken away.”
“That narrative blows up once people see the movie. But it’s coming. Something’s going to happen. Something’s going to be revealed. The truth always comes out. It always comes out.”
Snyder knew how to play the game. He played nice with WB, continued to keep the Snyderverse going for years after its shelf life, and eventually got what his fans had been demanding with the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. There isn’t the same level of momentum for #ReleaseTheAyerCut and Suicide Squad, sadly.
Also, the timing of this doesn’t make sense for Warner Bros. James Gunn is about to launch a new DCU with DC Studios. There are enough calls for Snyder to be reinstated, so why stir them up by releasing a director’s cut of the first Snyderverse movie to win an Oscar? It’s clear that editorial meddling ruined Ayer’s Suicide Squad, but the chances of seeing the film as he intended remain slim.