Suicide Squad director David Ayer, seemingly emboldened by the success of the The Snyder Cut, won’t shut up about how great his film could have been. We’re not convinced.
We’ve all failed at something before. It’s part of being human, and being able to bitch about it later is normally part of the healing process. That said, David Ayer needs to be taken to the side and told to give it rest. Just like his version of Suicide Squad needs to be taken out back and shot.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ayer lamented “I made an amazing movie. It’s an amazing movie, it just scared the sh** out of the executives.” Also insisting that “I made a really heartfelt drama and it got ripped to pieces and they tried to turn it into Deadpool”.
When Warner Bros. stated they had no intention of funding a recut (The Ayer Cut if you will) he rather sulkily tweeted a response.
Why? 🥺 https://t.co/0oJrRv54Av
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) March 22, 2021
Now to be clear, I’m not saying that Suicide Squad was all his fault. But if you get into bed with big Hollywood, to make a superhero movie, you don’t get to complain about how you didn’t have complete control. No one is that naïve.
Also, when considering the general hype surrounding James Gunn’s upcoming The Suicide Squad, it just feels needy, self-serving and unbecoming. It would be far more classy to wait until that film, a project that wouldn’t have been created if not for the original’s failure, has been given some time in the sun.
It’s also interesting how his past remarks seem to contradict his current position. After his Suicide Squad was released to poor reviews Ayer tweeted:
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) January 21, 2017
Why the sudden change of heart?
So three years ago he admitted he would have done things differently, admirably identifying the story he wrote as an area that could be improved on. The frustrating part is that now that it appears James Gunn may have done that he is backtracking, claiming that actually his Suicide Squad was “amazing”, until studio executives ruined it. Which I find somewhat hard to believe.
However, what this all really boils down to is that not every mediocre film needs to be recut. What went down with Zack Snyder’s Justice League should not become the new standard procedure for critically panned films. That film’s circumstances were anything but usual, and despite $70 million USD worth of reshoots, its director’s cut is still more of a curiosity than an actual good film.
Besides, rather than spending more money on trying to resuscitate bloated corpses, it would be nice to see that money spent on original content. Superhero films are fine and all, but if they suck lets just let them stay that way. Not every film has to be a masterpiece. Hell, sometimes it’s a films flaws that make us have fun.
