12 Directors Who Blamed Studios For Failed Movies

While the film actually managed to make a profit, there is little doubting that in terms of quality and box office expectations, Suicide Squad was an abject failure. The disjointed nature of the story, inconsistent tone, woeful villains and lack of depth in the characterisations meant that the film was yet another black mark for the DCEU. One man who really took the film's flop to heart was Director David Ayer, who has been extremely forthcoming in his critique of the film's production process.

While initially placing much of the blame upon himself for not having Jared Leto's Joker as the primary antagonist of the film, Ayer has since used Twitter to outline how the studio interfered with his film and ultimately caused it to fail. Responding to fan criticisms, Ayer revealed that his initial cut of the film had a far more complex story arc for Harley Quinn, which was simplified significantly for the studio edit. Further tweets from Ayer revealed that The Joker had several scenes that were removed from his version of the movie that dramatically weakened his character arc.

In the past week Ayer has once again fired up debate re Suicide Squad, explaining the rationale behind Harley Quinn's skimpy outfit while coming to the defence of Leto's Joker impersonation once more. Ayer again commented that much of Leto's work was "unseen", a strong inference that Warner Bros. had made a mistake in cutting so much of The Joker out of the final film.