10 Movies That Destroyed Themselves

A concerted effort of internal destruction on all fronts, David Ayer's Suicide Squad has gone down in history as one of the biggest disappointments of comic book movie history -- so much so that fans tried to sue Warner Bros for false advertising.

The problems began when Warner signed Ayer with just six weeks to put his script together, having already announced the release date before production began. Until that point, Ayer was known for the serious, small-scale action dramas End of Watch (2012) and Fury (2014), so to say he was mismatched to what ought to have been a campy yet bloody funfest is an understatement. Not that he ever really got a chance to make his mark on it.

Shameless money-grubbers Warner Bros. saw fan reactions to their comedic trailer for Suicide Squad and ordered a series of reshoots to adjust the tone, while at the same time tearing the thing apart by having music video editors reassemble it. And that's without getting started on the cast: Cara Delevingne was severely miscast as the antagonist, Will Smith demanded a lot of money to basically play himself, and Jared Leto chewed scenery and "went deep" by staying in character off camera.

What resulted was an exercise in branding and aesthetics, ploughed with popular music and images designed to transfer directly to t-shirts and toys, despite a hideous, muddy green and grey colour palette -- a sin given the historically colourful nature of this comic-book team.