10 Ways Suicide Squad Shows The DCEU Is Irreversibly F*cked
"We're a bad franchise. It's what we do."
What exactly Suicide Squad "is" has changed an awful lot over its production. Originally announced as a dark, zany offshoot of the more epic main DCEU stories, the questionable performance of its predecessors slowly realigned it to be viewed as something of a saviour for the whole endeavour, an opportunity for Warner Bros. to show they actually do know how to make superhero movies not directed by Christopher Nolan.
And now it's the movie that irreversibly f*cks the whole thing up, finishing a job admirably started by Batman V Superman. The film is a critical punching bag (and rightly so) and has a box office that's tumbling in the same downward spiral as Dawn Of Justice after a record breaking opening week.
But it's not just in ruining the DC name that the film hurts the Extended Universe though. There's a multitude of ways that David Ayer's grit-less exercise sets up failure or otherwise spells doom for everything coming out of Warner Bros' comic book arm in the near future.
The worst thing is, it may be too late for a course correct. The machine's moving - Wonder Woman is entering post-production, Justice League in shooting now and most other stand-alones have long been in development - so there may not be much more that can be done. Here's hoping something big shifts over at DC.
10. Extreme Studio Meddling
Batman V Superman was notoriously chopped down to fit an acceptable length, and while it had other problems besides coherence and pacing, it was a sign of some post-production meddling. Although that's positively laid-back compared to what's happened to Suicide Squad.
A rotation of editors - including bringing in the guys behind the trailers for one version - extensive reshoots and ultimately two vastly different cuts of the movie competing for test audience approval do not make for pretty headlines, and it was hardly unnoticeable in the finished product. The level of studio destruction is on a level just below what happened last year with Fant4stic, and sets a worrying precedent.
That's two movies out of three where some behind-the-scenes conflict has negatively affected the movies, and speaks so much about the approach to the DCEU when it comes to commissioning and completing films that will take a major shift to remove.
And on that note, let's not forget that Warner Bros. aren't the best when it comes to coming out of slumps. The late nineties was a dire time for mainstream cinema, but this studio in particular made a meal of every opportunity they had, only coming back thanks to their deft choices in the early naughties (Harry Potter and The Lord Of The Rings particularly). Now they're back where they were, making Tarzan movies nobody wanted and struggling with films about Superman's resurrection.