David Ayer has time and again expressed how heartbreaking it was for him to have his beloved movie Suicide Squad torn apart by the studio, resulting in him being brutally scrutinized and lambasted by critics. The filmmaker once famously referred to the whole fiasco as the biggest heartbreak of his life.
Although the studio’s cut was a commercial success, critics blasted it for its bland storyline, thinly curated characters, highly predictable and unexciting. One of the main points of debate was the character of Jared Leto aka Joker. However, the director recently confirmed that his Joker was nothing like in the critically panned DCEU film, but instead is a more formidably intense character.
David Ayer’s Joker Is Drastically Different Than His 2016 Suicide Squad
Jared Leto‘s Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad was criticized on several fronts. From not having enough screen time to lacking backstory, even the character’s relationship with Harley Quinn was left unexplored. Labeled by numerous critics as ‘wasted potential’, Joker’s character only appeared to be 2 dimensional, solely focused on his penchant for chaos resulting in the movie’s director being severely bashed by critics for his lack of vision.
David Ayer, on the other hand, has repeatedly denied that the released version was not ‘his’ movie but the studio’s. Just as he had stated back in 2021 about his version having traditional character arcs (via X), in a recent tweet on his official X account, the director again listed that his version of Joker was drastically different than the movie’s version.
“Joker is formidable intense and a force of nature in my cut. Not unfocused and silly. In my cut he has a story arc that hangs powerfully over the entire film. In the studio cut he’s a prop not a character.”
This revelation has left fans eager, generating a new series of tweets asking the studio to release Ayer’s version after previously having campaigned for years to have the original cut released.
David Ayer Is Hopeful That The Truth Will Come Out
After tweeting back in August of this year about James Gunn promising him that his version of Suicide Squad would have its time to be shared, David Ayer has yet again shown hope that his movie will finally come out. In a new interview with Total Film, the director appeared optimistic about the possibility of his cut being released and the truth being finally out in the open.
“I’m going to be hopeful… 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.”
While this isn’t the first and only time the director has spoken up about how his movie was treated and its potential release, Ayer’s statements have garnered a fresh wave of sympathy from fans, many of whom continue to hope with him for the original movie’s release.
Meanwhile, Suicide Squad (2016) can be streamed on Max.
