woulda coulda shoulda

Director David Ayer on Suicide Squad: I ‘Wish I Had a Time Machine’

Jared “Call me The Joker” Leto in “Suicide Squad.” Photo: Warner Bros.

Despite all of the hype, Suicide Squad came and went without much fanfare (or many fans) last year. But director David Ayer hasn’t totally put the muddy disappointment in the past, copping to some mistakes and sharing his woulda-coulda-shouldas on Twitter. “Wish I had a time machine,” he wrote in a note to a fan. As to the changes he’d make, Ayer says he would reconfigure the film to center Jared Leto’s highly controversial Joker as the main villain, as well as “engineer a more grounded story” (it’d be hard to make it less grounded, certainly … ). Still, Ayer sticks by his original vision, explaining, “If you set out to make a mass appeal movie, it’s easy to end up with vanilla. But I went for it. And I know Squad has its flaws, Hell, the World knows it. Nothing hurts more than to pick up a newspaper and see a couple of years of your blood, sweat and tears ripped to shreds. The hate game is strong out there.” Ayer also debunked a persistent whisper: “And no, there isn’t a secret edit of the film with a bunch of Joker scenes hidden in a salt mine somewhere.” Well, of course not. That’s what the time machine is for.

Suicide Squad Director Wishes for Time Machine