One last story from Jon Bernthal’s podcast with David Ayer about “Suicide Squad.” Sorry, but this one’s full of juicy tidbits. OK, Bernthal has a podcast called “Real Ones,” where he brings his friends on mostly. And those friends include people like Shia LaBeouf, who starred with him in the WWII tank drama “Fury” and in this episode, its director David Ayer.
We’ve covered elements of this podcast the past couple of weeks, but to quickly recap, after Ayer made “Fury” which starred Brad Pitt, LaBeouf, Bernthal, and more, he had the town of Hollywood in his pocket (at least that’s the sentiment that comes across between Bernthal and Ayer). Ayer then went on to make “Suicide Squad” and dozens of A-list stars were clamoring to be in it (Ayer eventually bagged names like Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jared Leto, among others).
Of course, creative control on “Suicide Squad” was basically taken away from Ayer, and as detailed in this conversation, what he hoped was a “dark, soulful” superhero movie full of humanity turned into a “f*cking comedy” against his wishes (uglier still, Ayer had to still work on it and basically do what the studio wanted or lose his job). Even LaBeouf questioned Ayer about wanting to make the film while meeting with another A-lister.
The indignity of this experience still hurts Ayer. “I wanna move on, I wanna heal from it,” Ayer said on the podcast, while noting the contradiction since he does have what people call #TheAyerCut, his dark, and serious version of “Suicide Squad” that he cut together before Warner Bros. and DC Films demanded massive reshoots to change the tone of the film. Ayer’s been in an unfortunate position career-wise ever since. The film came out, got creamed by critics—he felt like the end product wasn’t his fault because it wasn’t his vision—and Ayer also feels like the media treated him unfairly and poorly ever since. He became something of a scapegoat for the negative press about DC that continued after “Batman Vs. Superman” and into his movie and beyond.
And basically, Ayer isn’t wrong. If you’re empathetic, one’s gotta feel for Ayer because he’s a ball of mixed emotions: still rightly bitter and angry about what happened on “Suicide Squad,” and resentful about the way the press treated him, but very confident in his still-unseen version of the movie, albeit shaken and traumatized by the whole totality of the experience. And he’s been so sh*t on by critics and fans alike—“I’ve taken hundreds of rounds” he said about the verbal shots fired at him—he has to advocate for himself too, which potentially may get him into trouble.
On “Real Ones,” Ayer suggests that at one point, his film was beingso well-received internally at DC Films and Warner Bros., there were whispers that he could be elevated to take over the DC brand entirely (given that, at the time, Zack Snyder, who was largely in creative control up to that point, was essentially stepping down and being ousted). “It pisses me off because like, dude, I was coming off “Fury,” right?” Ayer said, suggesting the world was his oyster at the time. “And it was during a time, during “Suicide Squad” when the dailies were coming in, people were like, ‘Oh shit, maybe Ayer’s gonna take over DC.”
Some could see this as arrogance too; who knows? The filmmaker then went on to describe what sounds like a toxic environment over at WB after the failure of “Batman V. Superman,” with execs all pointing fingers at anyone they could. “It was like “Game Of Thrones” in there,” Ayer described the studio at the time. “The palace politics were insane. And the shit that was really going on? Bro! It’s like, ok, you know?”
What was really going on? That’s unclear, but he might be referring to the still-unsubstantiated claim, though heavily rumored, that Zack Snyder was fired off of “Justice League.” The director actually publicly stepped down following his daughter’s suicide, but the ugly rumors that Ayer might be referencing are that Snyder did that to save face. “And then [the media] were like shooting at me, and every time a new movie would come out,” he continued. “The press would come at me again. That’s what’s so f*cked up is that I became a talking point about the marketing for these other projects in a negative way, and I’m sitting there like, ‘what is happening??’”
Honestly, if you’re human, and you’re creative, you gotta feel for Ayer, as he’s been through the wringer since “Suicide Squad” and then some. But less charitable members of the media often have a very different view on the director and his maybe-too-candid comments. And that begs the question: will #TheAyerCut come out? Ayer in the same podcast recently clarified that DC Studios chief James Gunn has to put “scores on the board” before he can consider it, so it could be a long while, who knows? In the meantime, reader, what’s your assessment of all of this? It’s in the eye of the beholder, watch the entire podcast conversation yourself and then weigh in.
