David Ayer fights for his Suicide Squad movie as Warner’s shut down any plans to release it or any further ‘Snyderverse’ movies

It looks like the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League may have caused a bit of shake-up over at the DC camp at Warner Bros/DC.

We’ve known for a while that Suicide Squad director David Ayer – and the legions of fans – has been hoping to see his version of 2016’s unfairly maligned Suicide Squad released. The movie that we got in cinemas was not the version that Ayer had originally directed because after Warners saw the negative responses to Batman V Superman (which, again, they butchered beyond recognition) they panicked and ordered massive changes to Suicide Squad, much as they did with Justice League.

Now, with Justice League finally getting a release on HBO Max, there’s a big #RestoreTheAyerCut movement online too and it was looking like it was going to happen, especially after Justice League has made HBO Max a very happy streaming service.

However, new WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff is digging her heels in and insists that there will be no more Snyderverse and there will be no Ayer Cut as DC has a vision and going backwards isn’t part of that.

“We wanted to give Zack the opportunity to complete his vision in a four-hour movie,” Sarnoff says, “which is impossible to do in theaters. We’re happy that we have HBO Max to let the rope out as it were and allow the fans to see all four-hours of Zack’s vision.

“I appreciate that they [the fans] love Zack’s work and we are very thankful for his many contributions to DC. We’re just so happy that he could bring his cut of the “Justice League” to life because that wasn’t in the plan until about a year ago. With that comes the completion of his trilogy. We’re very happy we’ve done this, but we’re very excited about the plans we have for all the multi-dimensional DC characters that are being developed right now.”

However, the fans will not, it seems, be a driving force as they were with Justice League (I mean, why would you listen to the fans?):  “For certain fans that want singular voices (that’s the Snyderverse fan), they may be disappointed, but we would ask them to be patient and see what we’ve got in store because perhaps the newer voices in the mix will have just as compelling stories to tell. On balance, you of course want to listen to your fans, but we do want to stay true to our vision and our mission for DC and build that out.”

After chatting about how some fans are toxic, Sarnoff was asked if they would be giving Ayer’s Suicide Squad the same treatment, to which she replied: “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut”.

Seemingly as shocked as the rest of us, Ayer tweeted simply “why?”.

Why? 🥺 https://t.co/0oJrRv54Av

— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) March 22, 2021

Not one to be silenced, Ayer has since spoke out about his movie and why it didn’t get released according to his original vision: “I get it, it’s a business,” he said.

“It’s frustrating because I made a really heartfelt drama and it got ripped to pieces and they tried to turn it into Deadpool, which it just wasn’t supposed to be. And then you take the hit, you’re the captain of the ship, my name was on it. [Laughs] Even though it didn’t represent what I actually made, I would take all the bullets and be a good soldier. I made an amazing movie. It’s an amazing movie, it just scared the s— out of the executives.”

While I don’t doubt Ayer’s words, we know that once BvS started getting negative reviews, the studio was afraid of the world Snyder had set in motion, so they were afraid of Suicide Squad right away as it seems decisions had already been made to course correct the whole DC franchise.

“I think the studios see now that there can be canon, there can be non-canon, the fans just want to touch it,” Ayer says. “They love the characters, they just want to spend more time with it. And people are way more sophisticated about how movies are made and want to be participants in the journey. There’s room for different things, different versions, different assets being shared with the audience. I think it just helps strengthen the community. But absolute credit to Warner Bros for supporting Zack and having the courage to explore that.” From this, it seems to us here at FTN HQ that Ayer believes that there is still a place for his take on the DC Universe… and, as a fan already, I tend to agree and would love to see his original vision.

When the movie opened in 2016 Ayer had gone on record as saying that the movie that was released was the movie he made although over time it became clearer this wasn’t the case with Ayer finally saying admitting on social media: “I know it’s a controversial film, I really tried to make something different, with a look and feel of its own. Nothing hurts more than to pick up a newspaper and see a couple years of your blood, sweat, and tears ripped to shreds. The hate game is strong out there.”

Interestingly, on April 1st The Suicide Squad director James Gunn, after the release of his movie’s trailers (check them out here) was asked by a fan on Twitter: “No-one’s even seen David Ayer’s movie anyways since it’s not getting released for some reason. Do you think the chances of that being released will improve after your movie is released?”

To this question, Gunn replied: “I think there’s a chance of that.”

If you consider that Gunn’s sequel/follow-up hits cinemas and HBO Max this August, in the build-up or after release, if Gunn’s movie is well received, releasing an ‘unseen’ version of the original movie could be a massively profitable move, considering, unlike Justice League, it seems that Ayer’s Cut of Suicide Squad is sitting on a shelf, ready for release.

So there you have it, Warner’s seem to be done with the idea of releasing the Ayer Cut and, in fact, with the idea of a follow-up to Snyder’s Justice League, however the fans and the film-makers seem to have other ideas in mind and, in a world where just a couple of weeks ago we got to watch the proper Justice League, it seems that anything is possible.

Source: Variety and EW