Will Smith, who played “Batman” villain Deadshot in David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad” in 2016, told Variety that he supports the director’s cut of the DC superhero film. “Let me tell you, there’s a whole lot that stayed on the floor for ‘Suicide Squad,’” Smith said. “I’m into it. I love that world. I love what was created in both versions. I absolutely would love to [see it].” Following the HBO Max release of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” Ayer tweeted that his #AyerCut would be “easy” to structure and finally capture his original “Suicide Squad” storyline. “It would be incredibly cathartic for me,” Ayer wrote. “It’s exhausting getting your ass kicked for a film that got the ‘Edward Scissorhands’ treatment. The film I made has never been seen.”
Since the film’s release, Ayer has been vocal about how his original vision of the film differed from the final cut, including the speculation that Warner Bros. forced Ayer to cut Jared Leto’s screen time as the Joker. Ayer has denied that the limited Leto role had to do with his performance. “That is inaccurate information,” the director said at the time. “Not my words or actions.”
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Ayer openly criticized the extensive reworking of the theatrical release of the film, and compared the negative critic reviews to getting his “throat cut.”
James Gunn’s 2021 somewhat sequel-slash-franchise reboot “The Suicide Squad” led to Ayer accusing Warner Bros. once again of censoring his vision, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
“I put my life into ‘Suicide Squad,’” Ayer wrote in a Twitter thread titled “My Turn.” “I made something amazing. My cut is intricate and emotional journey with some bad people who are shit on and discarded (a theme that resonates in my soul). The studio cut is not my movie. Read that again. And my cut is not the 10 week director’s cut — it’s a fully mature edit by Lee Smith standing on the incredible work by John Gilroy. It’s all Steven Price’s brilliant score, with not a single radio song in the whole thing. It has traditional character arcs, amazing performances, a solid third-act resolution. A handful of people have seen it.”
Ayer added, “I never told my side of the story and never will … I’m old school like that. So I kept my mouth shut and took the tsunami of sometimes shocking personal criticism.”
WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff told Variety in March 2021 that the Ayer Cut is not moving forward, despite the fan campaign.
“We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut,” Sarnoff confirmed.
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