Suicide Squad’s David Ayer Drops Joker Tease After Zack Snyder’s Justice League Reveal

The news legions of fans had been hoping, praying, and pleading for arrived today as WarnerMedia confirmed Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be completed and released for the public to see. Shortly after it was announced, none other than Suicide Squad director David Ayer patted Snyder on the back on Twitter, saying: “Congratulations you deserve this.” Just nine minutes after congratulating Snyder though, Ayer made a post of his own featuring a video of Jared Leto‘s Joker from the film, which many fans used as a springboard to beat the drum of a different crusade: the release of the Ayer cut of Suicide Squad.

While some calls for “Release the Ayer Cut” have abounded across social media, it hasn’t evolved into a full blown movement like the Snyder Cut legions….at least not yet. Ayer himself has flipped back and forth about his satisfaction with the version of the movie that was released in 2016, but has been vocal in the years since that a lot of what he originally envisioned and intended to do in the film was changed and altered by Warner Bros.

Just yesterday Ayer revealed that one character was supposed to survive in the film and that two members of the Suicide Squad would hook-up in the end. He tweeted: “Diablo survived originally. Harley and Deadshot hooked up as a couple. This was changed during reshoots.”

In another previous tweet, Ayer revealed that much of Harley Quinn’s story had been changed for “political” reasons, revealing back in April: “Sadly her story arc was eviscerated. It was her movie in so many ways. Look I tried. I rendered Harley comic book accurate. Everything is political now. Everything. I just want to entertain. I will do better.”

To make things even more interesting, Ayer’s original version of his film would have tied it in directly to Zack Snyder’s Justice League as well. Concept art for Parademons in the movie was previously released with Ayer confirming that these Apokalips minions and Steppenwolfe were supposed to appear in his movie before they were slated to debut in Justice League.

“Enchantress was under the control of a mother box and Steppenwolfe was prepping an invasion with a boom tube,” the director revealed. “Had to lose that then the JL story arcs evolved.

Another person involved with the film who has advocated for the release of the additional materials that didn’t make the theatrical cut is Jared Leto, whose Joker only ended up having a few minutes of screen time despite being present on all the marketing of the film. Leto even suggested previously that “there’s probably enough footage in (Suicide Squad) for a Joker movie,” with Ayer himself saying that most of Leto’s “magnificent work” still “remains unseen.” The director later said that “There are not endless Joker scenes under guard somewhere” to the lament of fans, but did concede that he should have made the character the big bad of the entire movie.

So will we ever actually see the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad in the same way we’re going to see Snyder’s Justice League? It seems slightly unlikely since Warner Bros. themselves are moving on with another film, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and likely wouldn’t want to cause confusion with viewers. However, few could have guessed that Zack Snyder’s Justice League would actually be released, so stranger things have happened.