David Ayer won't apologize for 2016's "Suicide Squad"

[Thomas Veil]

...nor should he.

I came across this article in my news feed:

Many fans agree that there was a lot wrong with Suicide Squad, the DC Comics movie that saw the live-action debut of Harley Quinn alongside a very divisive take on the Joker. While the movie was a financial success and even won an Academy Award, the critical response to the supervillain team-up flick was a lot more harsh than the Oscars. Even though it's been a few years since the film premiered in theaters, many fans are still upset that Suicide Squad was ever released. Director David Ayer's social media is a constant source for disgruntled fans to air their grievances, but the filmmaker doesn't really care what the haters say.

I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of stories -- especially those coming out about the "soft reboot" -- trashing this movie and calling it a failure. I frankly enjoyed it...and I thought that perhaps I was the only one, until I talked about it with a few work colleagues and they all agreed that they liked it and that it has been unfairly castigated.

The fact is, no matter how many times articles talk about how much critics hated the movie, the fans couldn't have all hated it too -- it's made $750 million and counting.

Now, I have seen the extended cut, and I do agree that would've made an even better film...especially in explaining the sick relationship between Harley and Joker. And I do note that the plot was tight and complicated, to the point where if you left to go to the bathroom at the wrong point, you lost the thread of the movie.

But there were some wonderful character moments in it. Two that stand out to me are the relationship between Deadshot and his daughter (both at the beginning and end of the film) and Harley's complex personality. You want to like her. She's funny, after all. But Digger Harkness is right that when she opens up her mouth, it's a knife fight, especially when it's clear El Diablo is in pain about killing his kids and she drives the knife in deeper: "Own that ****!" She's not very likable at that point.

Even Waller's barriers break down for a moment when she gives in and grants Deadshot, Harley and others little favors after the mission is over (aside from the ten years off their sentences).

Frankly, the way everyone in power seems to be disowning this movie, I'm actually a little concerned about the sequel. James Gunn is directing, and I know his movies made money, but I got through only the first third of "Guardians" before I was bored off my ass. And they're planning on going a different direction from the first "Squad" movie?

I'll give it a fair shake when it comes out, but they're not exactly building up my confidence. "Oh, it gonna be a better movie. It's gonna have Polka Dot Man in it." Be still, my beating heart.

All I'm really asking for here is that they stop this bandwagon trashing of the original. Not one person who writes about it seems to have the balls to stand up and say, "You know, there were actually a lot of good things about it."

(Edited to fix my own errors, and because ******* spellcheck keeps changing "Deadshot" to "Headshot". ? )

 

[D.T.]

The fact is, no matter how many times articles talk about how much critics hated the movie, the fans couldn't have all hated it too -- it's made $750 million and counting.

The astounding thing: a decade or so ago, anything north of $500M was spectacular, and now the current thinking in the modern superhero IP driven film industry, anything shy of $1B is a failure.

 

[RootBeerMan]

And this is why I never bother even reading "the critics". Suicide Squad was a perfectly fine comics based movie, from my fan perspective. Could it have been better? Sure, but that can be said of any movie that comes from an already established universe, like DC comics. No apologies are needed, except perhaps for the lack of a quick followup movie!

 

[JayMysterio]

An important thing to remember it isn't on Ayers completely. The Suicide Squad that was released, is more like two different movies smashed together. There's the darker one that Ayers wanted, and there's the one the execs wanted after the reception of the "Ballroom Blitz" trailer dropped. After that, execs wanted a different film, one that featured all the music that eventually you see get shoe horned seemingly every 5 minutes in the middle of the film.

The execs of course won't take the blame, because there's no name associated, unlike a director. In the case of Suicide Squad, like the second Amazing Spider-Man film with Garfield, it's outside interference ultimately responsible for what we ended up getting.

 

[Thomas Veil]

^ In spite of that, I thought it played fairly smoothly, even though the humor was injected into the film as almost a last-minute thought. Some of my favorite lines are the funny ones, like "That's gangsta," or "Love your perfume. What is that, the stench of death?"

My co-workers did have one criticism I agreed with. That "machine" that Enchantress created looked pretty much the way Deadshot described it: a whirling circle of trash in the sky.

And I do like the music. How else is a geezer like me going to get introduced to good stuff? I actually just bought "Heathens" the other day. ?

 

[Juicy Box]

The astounding thing: a decade or so ago, anything north of $500M was spectacular, and now the current thinking in the modern superhero IP driven film industry, anything shy of $1B is a failure.

The production budgets of these type of movies have increased many times over compared to movies just a decade or two ago.

A long with the increased production budget is the crazy high amount spent on advertising and promoting of some of these movies. The advertising costs on some movies today can be many times the entire production budgets of movies from not too long ago.

For example:

Jurassic Park (1994) Production Budget estimated $63 M with Promotion of $65M (A lot for promotion back then), Break even @ $128M, WW Box Office: $1.03B

Jurassic World: Falling Kingdom (2018) Production Budget estimated $170–187M with Promotion of $330M, Break even @ $500-$517M, WW Box Office: $1.31 B

I got these numbers from Wiki, and I assume they are not adjusted for inflation.

If the original Jurassic Park made only $500M, it would have still been a very financially successful movie. If Falling Kingdom would have made only $500M, while still making a lot of $$, it would have been a huge Box Office bomb.

 

[D.T.]

The production budgets of these type of movies have increased many times over compared to movies just a decade or two ago.

A long with the increased production budget is the crazy high amount spent on advertising and promoting of some of these movies. The advertising costs on some movies today can be many times the entire production budgets of movies from not too long ago.

I get all that, I've got close friends really involved in the film industry, heck, I've even got an IMDB Pro account My comment stands, the success-to-failure revenue has - at least in context of "industry reporting" - gotten a bit skewed.

 

[Juicy Box]

I personally didn't hate the movie like many people and critics, but I didn't think it was all that great either.

Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn was my favorite part about the movie, and would have loved to see more of her with the Joker, but a different Joker than what was in the movie.

The fact is, no matter how many times articles talk about how much critics hated the movie, the fans couldn't have all hated it too -- it's made $750 million and counting.

While $750M is a lot, it had a production budget of $175M and $150 was spent for promotion. That is quite a bit spent, but assuming there wasn't any other huge expenditures, Suicide Squad still made a decent profit.

Just not as much as expected.

Compare that to another comic book movie release the same year, Deadpool (2016).

On the surface, Suicide Squad should have destroyed Deadpool, as Suicide Squad has more recognizable characters, many times the production and promotion budget, rated PG-13 for a wider potential audience, to name a few.

Deadpool ran out of money(which was a tiny amount to begin with) and didn't have any left over for the traditional advertising and promotion. Free avenues for promotion and advertising were used, and Ryan Reynolds ended up doing a lot of the promoting of the movie himself.

In the end, Deadpool ended up making more money in the box office than Suicide Squad, but only spending a tiny fraction to do it ($58M).

The story of Deadpool is kind of interesting, as Fox originally wanted Deadpool to be a rated PG-13 film with a huge budget like Suicide Squad. Rated R test screening footage was leaked (rumored to be leaked by Ryan Reynolds), and it ended up being really well received. Fox agreed to go forward with a rated R version, but only gave a faction of the original budget amount to make it. I bet they are happy they decided to green light it.

I wonder how Suicide Squad would have turned out of it was rated R.

 

[Juicy Box]

All I'm really asking for here is that they stop this bandwagon trashing of the original.

This seems to be a big thing recently, although, I think there are some examples of this from years past (Star Wars Prequels).

It sometimes goes the other way too.

While is it very subjective whether a movie is good or not, at least when it comes to quality, there has been a few recent movies that I think were not good movies, but the critics and/or audience loved it.

One that comes to mind was Furious 7. It made a crap load of money, was critically loved, and people were going nuts over it at the time. As for the critics, at one point, the Rotten Tomato rating was high than two of three the original Indiana Jones movies. It has since lowered a little.

I wouldn't say that the Furious 7 was horrible, it was an okay F&F movie, but the hype and praise for it was over the top at one point.

I wonder if Paul Walker had not died, would there have been as much hype about it.


On the other hand, there is some movies that I think where not that bad, but were destroyed by critics and/or the audience.

While not a movie, I can think of a good example from the last few years, and that is Iron Fist. People trashed this show so much, and still do.

I don't think it was the best Marvel TV show on Netflix (DD), but it wasn't horrible imo. It was entertaining, and different. People tend to like season two more than the first season, and while there were improvements with the fight scenes, I think the story wasn't as good.

Of course, this is all subjective. Just like with how people feel about Suicide Squad.