David Ayer Still Has Hope His Suicide Squad Cut Will Be Released

Comic book movies have long had a weird legacy; as io9 pointed out recently, Fantastic Four reboots have been happening approximately once a decade since the 1990s. But the case of DC’s The Suicide Squad is an oddity all its own. David Ayer’s film arrived in 2016 and yielded underwhelming results; then, James Gunn made Suicide Squad, a sort-of sequel that fared much better, in 2021. Shortly before the latter film’s release, Ayer spoke up about how the film that hit theaters wasn’t representative of his intended version—and it’s a topic he’s returned to over the years, including this week.

For context, 2021 was the year Zack Snyder’s Justice League, aka “the Snyder cut,” finally saw the light of day after much fan agitation and millions of additional Warner Bros. bucks. So when Ayer first brought up the idea of “the Ayer cut” of The Suicide Squad, the idea didn’t seem so far-fetched. But a lot has changed in the movie biz since 2021; Gunn is now the co-head of DC Studios, and Warner Bros. is far more interested in saving money than seemingly ever before.

In early 2024, Gunn spoke to the Hollywood Reporter about his The Suicide Squad cut; he’d talked to Gunn about it when Gunn took over at DC, but hadn’t heard any updates since. “I can take the hint. It’s been radio silent, and I’m done pushing a rock uphill,” he told the trade then, emphasizing that he’d moved on to other projects.

In a new interview with THR published this week, he revisited those remarks. While he said he’s gotten no recent update from the studio (“When I did speak with James [Gunn], he wanted to [first] get some scores on the board. DC has its history and its legacy, and it’s taking some work to reestablish that IP and get it moving in the direction they want. So it’s absolutely fair for them to do that”), he also had a bit of “never say never” to add to that.

“Maybe with enough time, it’ll be seen as a more nostalgic thing. But just for the sake of everybody that worked on [2016’s Suicide Squad], it really does deserve to be seen,” Ayer said. “I am incredibly proud of the work I did there. But at the same time, it’s not my IP, and it’s not my studio. So I absolutely understand what James is doing, and I think he’s going to have some real successes with the lanes he’s going down.”

It’s certainly clear he has a good relationship with Gunn; perhaps that’ll help tip the scales in the future if The Suicide Squad ever gets a revisit. So how different would his version have been? Ayer explained: “A lot of the major elements got vetoed early on. The bake-off was then my version of their cut and their version of their cut. My version mostly won, but it still was not the movie I made at all.”

What do you think: release the Ayer cut or let The Suicide Squad rest in peace?

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