Suicide Squad Director Reveals Alternate Look For Villain

As part of a new batch of photos he’s sharing on Twitter, Suicide Squad director David Ayer gave fans a look at an alternate design for Incubus, the brother of Enchantress and one of the two main villains in the hit 2016 movie. In the theatrical version of the movie, Incubus’s design was widely criticized, with the actor’s face looking sloppily pasted into a CG head. Apparently, Ayer wanted a more horror-inspired version — and one that has a design reminiscent of some of the Apokoliptian designs in Zack Snyder’s Justice League as an added bonus. From his caption, it’s pretty clear Ayer still hasn’t fully gotten over the compromise.

There is, of course, a difference between this and the Ayer Cut of the movie, which has not been released but was said to be virtually complete at the time the studio called in new editors to rework the film. Like the Snyder Cut, a social media campaign has sprung up around fans who want to see that version, but unless there was quite a bit of money, it’s unlikely that the character designs would be wildly different. 

You can see it below.

Incubus played a small but key role in the final film, being key to corrupting the Enchantress and also squaring off with El Diablo in a battle to the death, giving the team a third-act sacrifice while keeping June Moone relatively free from responsibility for killing a teammate while under the magical influence.

“I put my life into Suicide Squad,” Ayer recently wrote in an open letter. “I made something amazing. My cut is intricate and emotional journey with some bad people who are shit on and discarded (a theme that resonates in my soul). The studio cut is not my movie. Read that again. And my cut is not the 10-week director’s cut – it’s a fully mature edit by Lee Smith standing on the incredible work by John Gilroy. It’s all Steven Price’s brilliant score, with not a single radio song in the whole thing. It has traditional character arcs, amazing performances, a solid third-act resolution. A handful of people have seen it.”

Warner Bros. has previously shot down the idea of releasing the Ayer Cut, with studio exec Ann Sarnoff saying that they would “not be developing” the director’s version of the film.