Warner Bros. has no plans to #ReleaseTheAyerCut of Suicide Squad
HBO Max finally released Zack Snyder’s Justice League (a.k.a. “The Snyder Cut”) this weekend, with the general reaction being that the movie is at least a slight improvement on the terrible original cut, but what are the loyal #ReleaseTheSnyderCut evangelists supposed to do now? Finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe? That would be nice, but no. Instead, they’ve moved on to demanding that Warner Bros. either “#RestoreTheSnyderVerse” (so… cancel an entire slate of upcoming films and replace them with sequels nobody wants) or “#ReleaseTheAyerCut.” The latter hashtag is a reference to Suicide Squad director David Ayer’s claim last year that a better version of his movie would be “easy to complete,” with him later adding that, unlike the theatrical version (which, like Justice League, was terrible), his director’s cut was a “soulful drama” that was “perfectly coherent.” Again, this is Suicide Squad we’re talking about, which was the movie where the Joker had “damaged” tattooed on his forehead so you knew how damaged he was.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. has capped off the Snyder fans’ victorious weekend with some bad news: Not only are neither of those things ever going to happen, but releasing the “Ayer Cut” is especially never going to happen. Speaking with Variety, WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff danced the idea of “restoring the Snyder Verse,” referring to the new Justice League as the “completion of [Snyder’s] trilogy” and explaining that the studio has moved on to developing new projects with “multi-dimensional DC characters”—like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Superman movie. Sarnoff was more direct regarding the Ayer Cut, saying simply, “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut.”
So that’s that, no need to bug anyone about releasing the Ayer Cut. On an unrelated note, Variety brings up some allegations that the DC movie fandom has a “toxic side,” with Sarnoff saying that they’re “not tolerating any of that,” that it’s “completely unacceptable,” and that it’s disappointing to see that some fans “have chosen to go to that negative place.”
Elsewhere in that chat, Sarnoff mentions that Ray Fisher is no longer under any non-disclosure agreements about the experience he had on the set of Justice League the first time around, so he’s theoretically free to talk about whatever he wants now regarding the abuse he says he went through when Joss Whedon was in charge of the film. Fisher’s lawyer confirmed as much, saying that the Cyborg actor “will comment further when appropriate to do so.”