James Gunn’sThe Suicide Squadis just a few short weeks away. Based on the trailers, it looks like it could be the DC Extended Universe’s weirdest, wildest entry to date.King Shark will casually dismember people, there’ll be an F-bomb every couple of lines, and the baddies will attack Task Force X with their own personal kaiju. The fact that Gunn’s distinctively pitch-black comedic sensibility can be seen all overThe Suicide Squad’s marketing campaign is a promising sign thatThe Suicide Squadwill rectify one of the DCEU’s biggest problems.
Since the polarized response toBatman v Superman, Warner Bros. executives have been very antsy about how their expensive DC movies are handled. As a result, most DC movies end up playing it safe, and the studio has developed a notorious reputation formeddling in the vision of its filmmakers. The creative freedom that Gunn has been given onThe Suicide Squadseems to signify an exciting change in Warners’ approach to the franchise.
RELATED:James Gunn Reveals The Suicide Squad Runtime
Gunn has continually stressed that Warner Bros. executives were “creatively amazing” while he was makingThe Suicide Squad, and that they indulged every radical whim of his vision. The directortweeted, “I made every single choice and [Warners] never once even slightly interfered.” Hopefully, this will mark a sea change where Warners finally start trusting their filmmakers more.
Ironically, Warners’ issues with DC filmmakers started with the firstSuicide Squadmovie. David Ayer cut together a dark, brooding, dramatic piece that focused heavily on Jared Leto’s Joker. However, the double whammy ofBvSunderperforming at the box office with a dreary tone andDeadpoolbreaking all kinds of records with a fun, lighthearted tone gave Warners cold feet about Ayer’s vision.
The comedicSuicide Squadtrailers were well-received by fans, so the studio executives essentially cut Ayer out of the process and hired the company that edited the trailers to re-edit the entire movie into the confused mess that arrived in theaters. The #ReleaseTheAyerCut campaign has gained nowhere near as much traction on social media as the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign, soWarners will likely never bother releasing it. But it would be interesting to see what 2016’sSuicide Squadlooked like when it was actually a movie and not a feature-length trailer.
At the same time, Warner Bros. executives started putting the screws on Zack Snyder. After the unwieldy runtime ofBvSwas criticized in practically every review, Warners demanded thatJustice League– which was already deep into development with many, many storylines at play – be under two hours long. With seven main protagonists and a bunch of setups fromBvSto pay off, there was no way the story ofJustice Leaguewas ever going to fit within a two-hour runtime. When Snyder stepped down from the project and Joss Whedon came onboard to meet all of Warners’ demands, he cut out almost everything that didn’t involve Batman and Wonder Woman. The result –sometimes dubbed “Josstice League”– plays as a tired, meager attempt to replicate the Marvel formula. Unsurprisingly, Whedon’s cut performed even worse at the box office thanBvS.
But Warners still didn’t learn their lesson there. The stylized visuals and hard-R antics of theBirds of Preytrailers suggested the studio had finally stepped back and allowed an auteur to do their job. Unfortunately, when it arrived in theaters, it turned out to be another Warner Bros. hatchet job. It was hardly surprising whendirector Cathy Yan admittedthat Warner Bros. had interfered with her vision: “Inevitably, you end up having to compromise and fight for stuff. And you win some and you lose a lot.”Birds of Preycouldn’t decide if it wanted to be a Harley Quinn solo movie or an ensemble team-up movie. This kind of tonal indecisiveness is a tell-tale sign of studio meddling – executives try to please everyone and end up pleasing no one.
After four years ofJustice League’s fabled “Snyder Cut” being dismissed as a pipe dream, Warner Bros. surprisingly announced that it would bow to fan pressure and give Zack Snyder $70 million to complete his vision for the movie so they could release it on HBO Max. Released as a four-hour giant under the titleZack Snyder’s Justice League, the Snyder Cut is far from a perfect movie, but at least it offereda wholly unique take on the DC iconsas opposed to desperately trying to emulate the MCU.
For all the things that Warner Bros. have taken from the MCU over the years, they didn’t take Kevin Feige’s trust in his filmmakers. While Feige is the guiding light for Marvel’s cinematic output, he gives his directors a tremendous amount of creative control over their movies.Thor: Ragnarokis a Taika Waititi movie,Black Pantheris a Ryan Coogler movie, and of course, theGuardians of the Galaxymovies are James Gunn movies. It’s taken them long enough to get there, but Warners finally seem to be following this strategy withZack Snyder’s Justice LeagueandThe Suicide Squad. Let’s just hope it’s not just a temporary dalliance with auteurs and these changes will be permanent.
The Suicide Squadis set to be released both theatrically and on HBO Max on August 6.
MORE:James Gunn Fulfills A Very Specific Request From A Canadian Theater Chain
