Here’s What Went Wrong With ‘Suicide Squad’
By Angie Han/Aug. 3, 2016 2:30 pm EST
The Hollywood Report has a long report about the Suicide Squad problems, and we’ve compiled some of the main issues for you below.
It’s worth reading their (spoiler-free) article in full, especially if you’re a sucker for behind-the-scenes drama.
Frankly, the scariest thing about all these Suicide Squad problems may be how commonplace they all seem. This isn’t even the only story run today about a massive franchise film that went through much-talked-about reshoots and then brought in additional help to finish the movie. We’ve yet to see how that one will turn out, but it just goes to show these hazards aren’t unique to DC movies or even to Warner Bros.
For starters, it’s no longer unusual for studios to schedule releases years down the line, for films they’ve barely even begun developing. Warner Bros. has its DC universe mapped out through 2020, and competitor Marvel has announced films through 2019. And once those announcements are made, the studio is basically stuck. “It’s not just that you’ve told the public the movie is coming, you’ve made huge deals around the world with huge branding partners, with merchandise partners,” explained a source. “It’s a really big deal to move a tentpole date.”
To be sure, none of these factors automatically spell trouble. Plenty of films have grappled with similar issues and turned out just fine. It’s impossible to know how things would have turned out differently if Ayer had more time or more experience, and since we haven’t actually seen his original cut, we don’t know how it would have compared to the final version the studio pushed for. (For what it’s worth, Ayer is standing by his movie.) It’s also worth pointing out that Suicide Squad hasn’t actually opened yet, so it may well turn out that general audiences like it a lot more than most critics do.
But even as someone who liked the film more than most of my colleagues, I have to concede Suicide Squad has some serious issues including sloppy storytelling and some baffling structural issues. Now that we know more about what went down, Suicide Squad starts to feel like a warning about the potential pitfalls of blockbuster filmmaking.
