Release The Ayer Cut - And What We Know About It

Before the announcement of Zack Snyder's Justice League, AT&T was hinting at the Snyder Cut with likes on specific posts regarding the movie. After some internal shuffling, they came through with the huge announcement at the end of Zack's Man Of Steel Watch Party live-stream.

AT&T has been back at it again - this time for David Ayer's cut of Suicide Squad. Ayer has wasted no time in promoting his version, answering more questions than ever. It's great seeing him sparking up more conversation about the film to try and get it released - as it should.

The Zack Snyder Community moved Heaven and Earth to help realize a director's real vision - we proved that when a fandom works together, anything is possible. We must protect artistic integrity. David Ayer deserves the same chance, and we will do it again - if it isn't already in the works.

When someone said they had fun with the Trailer Park Cut of Suicide Squad, and that the Ayer Cut should be released, David Ayer retweeted saying "I wish [1]." A few hours later he then replied to someone talking about how it seems like the Ayer Cut will never get released and if there's anything he could do - saying: "It is simply not my call or my IP. I love WB - it's always been my' home studio' I fully respect and support the incredible path the DCU is taking under their stewardship. My cut of Suicide Squad may always be just a rumor. And that's just fine [2]."

The fandom is on board helping to get Ayer's vision realized - many tweets of support and more questions than ever. Even a dedicated "Release The Ayer Cut" Twitter (@RTAyerCut), which he also follows and occasionally retweets. And finally, more articles talking about Ayer and why his cut should be released.

While there are many people out there who enjoy the released version of Suicide Squad - personally, I wasn't a fan, but I would prefer to see what was going to hit the cinema before the re-shoots. On May 31, 2020, David Ayer said, "[the 'I Started A Joke'] trailer nailed the tone and intention of the film I made. Methodical. Layered. Complex, beautiful, and sad. The BVS reviews shell shocked the leadership at the time, and [with] the success of Deadpool - My soulful drama was beaten into a 'comedy' [3]."

Does it exist, and how different is it?

Yes. It exists. When someone tweeted about David potentially confirming its existence, he replied, "Of course, it exists. And it is almost complete except for some visual effects [4]." Later the next day he went on to say, "My cut would be easy to complete. It would be incredibly cathartic for me. It's exhausting getting your ass kicked for a film that got the Edward Scissor-hands treatment. The film I made has never been seen [5]."

How different it is, we're not entirely sure - but we do know The Squad was more fleshed out in Ayer's cut. Recently, Ayer has dropped a few nuggets of information that supports the notion The Squad was adequately fleshed out.

What we do know is:

Katana was a character that took most of the cuts. She was seen for a handful of scenes and then vanishes - never seen again. When asked directly about this, Ayer said, "Enchantress takes her over with a tendril, and she attacks the rest of the Squad [6]," which I think would be interesting to see.

The Joker is another character who had a lot of scenes cut. Jared Leto famously said, "I think there is probably enough footage in this film for a Joker movie [7]," but David Ayer finally responded to this saying, "No, not enough for a Joker movie [8]." That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of Joker footage we haven't seen yet.

Twitter user @MarvOnTheWay tweeted out, "from what I've heard - after Joker's helicopter crashed, he made a deal with Enchantress where he'd take Harley and be the king of Gotham, and was present in the Third Act. Since SS was mainly a Harley (And Deadshot) film, the temptation would have been greater." And Ayer responded with, "Exactly this. It was filmed [9]."

Ayer also confirmed the Club scene got re-edited as well as potentially re-shot with his response to a tweet that asked if there was more Monster T and if Joker really did kill him - saying, "It's a long scene and Joker intimidated him into killing himself [10]."

We also know that Ayer had to re-shoot the Arkham scene where Joker tortures Harley because it was "too dark." He also said his "First Act was a normally constructed film. [He] took my inspiration from Nolan. There were real scenes with incredible acting between Jared and Margot. Joker was terrifying. Harley was complex [11]." He later added that "Joker was rich and dimensional [12]."

In response to some backlash against Harley, we also found out she had a proper story arc (which isn't surprising), as Ayer said: "sadly, her story arc was eviscerated. It was her movie in so many ways. Look, I tried. I rendered Harley Comic Book accurate [13]."

Adam Beach also joined the conversation of The Ayer Cut dropping some information about his character Slipknot: "There was an opening sequence of how I got caught for the Suicide Squad program that was pretty cool [14]."

Ayer also noted that "Enchantress/June Moon were more solidly arced out in my cut [15]," and "Diablo survived originally, Harley and Deadshot hooked up as a couple. This was changed during re-shoots [16]."

What about the New Gods and Justice League connections?

Ayer has teased many New Gods connections - or even just outright told us about them. Were these present in the film before the re-shoots? Simply put, "it was rewritten to remove the New Gods elements [17]." So everything Ayer has teased about the Parademons and Steppenwolf was removed before cameras started rolling.

He said, "[Suicide] Squad was the on-ramp for JL - which was a much more ambitious two-part movie arc with impressive scope. [Suicide] Squad was the appetizer for Zack's epic [18]." When asked about this, Zack's response was: "I'm not sure what David's talking about with the... I mean, look - Steppenwolf is in this movie. You saw him in this movie (Batman v Superman) - so how? Look, there was a lot of great conversations that I had with David about - you know, even getting our Batman and Flash in Suicide Squad. We didn't want to get too crazy with it, but at the same time, we were trying to be."

Zack continues, "the idea was that the different directors would have their take, and we just try and support each other, so that - you know it could mesh up, but at the same time, not force anyone into a decision, maybe they didn't want to make - as best you can. It's hard, sometimes - 'cause you're like look, 'I need Steppenwolf because he's one of the bad guys in this movie.' So, those were the conversations we had, and I thought everyone was doing a pretty great job."

Do we know what was in the original script?

Not a lot - but it's speculated that it's very similar to the film he shot, just with particular aspect changed. The few revealed concepts are relatively similar to what was released. According to Ayer, the "machine" Enchantress made to blow up the city was "supposed to be a Boom Tube as she was under [the] control of a Mother Box [19]," and then at the end revealed, "Steppenwolf was prepping an invasion with a Boom Tube." But he had to "lose that then the JL story arcs evolved [20]." The Boom Tube idea got replaced by the machine concept as "an attempt to create a ticking clock and world threat."

David Ayer has also confirmed that the Eyes Of The Adversary were originally Parademons, "just like in the comics [21] [22]." Since we knew Steppenwolf was going to appear at one point, people made the connections from the Concept Art to Enchantress' Eyes Of The Adversary minions - not too long after, David confirmed it by sharing a new image of a 3D Printed mock-up [23]. The Concept Art in the tweet David replied to was from Christian Lorenz Scheurer [24] [25] and Ian Joyner [26].

Ayer also dropped an image last month of Concept Art for the beam that Enchantress summons, featuring what almost looks like Apokalyptian designs [27]. When compared to the shot in the first trailer and some parts of the movie, it still kept those design elements. I'd say it started as Apokalyptian for the original script and Ayer kept it because it's visually interesting and could still fit the style of Enchantress - it would also save on time re-conceptualizing parts of the movie.

Interesting Information

Timeline of Suicide Squad:

David Ayer signed on to Write and Direct in September 2014. Suicide Squad started Preliminary Filming on April 13, 2015, and finished sometime in August 2015, with re-shoots happening in the last week of March 2016, and Editing completing on June 25, 2016. Suicide Squad then released on August 4, 2016, to high praise.

While there was eight-months between being hired and rolling cameras, rumours still circulated that he wrote the script in a few weeks. David finally set this straight replying to someone arguing over the film that he, apparently, was "forced to write a film in under two weeks," to which Ayer replied, "Script in two weeks is meme garbage [28]." I originally heard six weeks, but the evidence to support he had ample time is all there.

How long it is

And lastly, one of the most exciting tweets Ayer has tweeted was, "don't worry about running time - it's about HOW the story is told [29]," when asked about his cuts run-time. That statement immediately made me think Ayer would possibly re-edit the film if he had the creative freedom to do so. When he made that original cut, he was under different circumstances, such as showing times and whatnot. The film is now a completely different beast. The run-time may no longer be an issue - and I'm sure over the years he's thought of many ways to re-edit the film to improve it, like rearranging scenes or adding in initially delete scenes.

I'd love for Ayer even to get the chance to film new elements if he needed to. It seems Zack is being allowed to - so I think there's a chance. I don't think it would be to bring it back to the original New Gods script, but maybe to tighten the film up here and there.

Let me know what you think down below or on Twitter @AfterHoursMedYT