David Ayer Claims His Suicide Squad Was ‘Beaten into a Comedy’

David Ayer Suicide Squad comedy Batman v Superman BvS Deadpool Guardians of the Galaxy

David Ayer is pushing hard for his cut of Suicide Squad to get the same treatment that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now receiving on HBO Max. The director has said for years that the film released was not his, but thanks to the recent Justice League news, Ayer is speaking up again about his version, saying now that his cut of the film was not the “comedy” that WB finally released, and it’s because of Batman v Superman sucking and Deadpool making heaps of money.

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Depending how you look at it, this flies directly in the face of what Ayer said before the film released. Reports were flying that the studio wanted more humor and that that was why reshoots and different edits were being done, but Ayer took to Twitter back in 2016 to deny that they were about adding more comedy to the film:

The trailer being referred to was definitely darker in tone and hinted at far more complex characters than we got in the final film (not that high a bar). However, even back when reports of multiple edits and trouble with tone were coming out before the film even released, it seemed pretty obvious that Warner Bros. was reacting with panic to the pummeling that the relentlessly dire Batman v. Superman received and the love that the R-rated Deadpool saw. There’s an argument to be made that Guardians of the Galaxy‘s rag-tag comedy “outlaws” also influenced WB’s desire to change Ayer’s film. The studio clearly saw what it thought was a blueprint and tried to force Ayer’s film into it — according to the director.

We will probably never know if Ayer’s supposedly methodical, layered, complex, beautiful, and sad version of Suicide Squad would have been any good. There aren’t any reports of Warner Media actually being interested in releasing Ayer’s version of the film, especially with James Gunn relaunching the franchise soon. Ayer, however, doesn’t hold a grudge against the studio and, in fact, stood up for it:

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Author
Matthew Razak
Matthew Razak is a News Writer and film aficionado at Escapist. He has been writing for Escapist for nearly five years and has nearly 20 years of experience reviewing and talking about movies, TV shows, and video games for both print and online outlets. He has a degree in Film from Vassar College and a degree in gaming from growing up in the '80s and '90s. He runs the website Flixist.com and has written for The Washington Post, Destructoid, MTV, and more. He will gladly talk your ear off about horror, Marvel, Stallone, James Bond movies, Doctor Who, Zelda, and Star Trek.