Suicide Squad is almost here, and regardless of whether or not the movie is a hit, it turns out its mere existence is something of a miracle. Making this movie was a massive undertaking, and there were reportedly a good number of trip-ups along the way. According to a new huge story looking at the behind-the-scenes work to create Suicide Squad, reshoots were just a part of the drama that was going on behind the scenes with the blockbuster. There are claims that disagreements over the film's tone and even the way characters were introduced to the story were major issues for the studio as the final cut was being put together.
It's fairly common knowledge that, box office notwithstanding, Warner Bros. was really unhappy with the critical reception of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. A new story in The Hollywood Reporter is now saying that this had a profound impact on the production of Suicide Squad. When the movie went back to do reshoots, rumors swirled that the reason for them was to make the movie lighter in tone, specifically to better match the successful trailers that had been released to promote it. While those statements have been repeatedly denied, the new trade report claims that the studio went so far as to recut the entire film with Trailer Park, the company that had produced that trailer. Allegedly, both versions were shown to different test audiences in order to get a sense of which people preferred. While it appears that director David Ayer was aware and on-board with this approach, the studio's version, which introduced characters much earlier and added "jazzed-up graphics," was the eventual winner.
While we have to take everything here with at least one grain of salt, with the information coming from unnamed sources, it paints a pretty unfortunate picture of the process and proceedure that it took to get Suicide Squad made. The report makes it sound like making the film was a mad dash from the very beginning. Suicide Squad was announced in the fall of 2014 and was given a release date immediately. Apparently, pushing the film back was simply never an option, meaning that David Ayer had to jump right into producing the script, which he did in six weeks - launching into production almost immediately after. Not the easiest task for a filmmaker who has never made a summer blockbuster before.
While it may be some time before any behind-the-scenes stories are confirmed by those who ushered it through the process, it's easy to see how all of this could be true. The "Critics Consensus" currently on Rotten Tomatoes for Suicide Squad uses terms like "muddled plot" and "choppy directing," both of which could come as the result of a rushed schedule and not enough time for proper planning. It's also quite often that these are descriptors applicable to a finished product that is two different visions melded into a single film.
Time will tell how Suicide Squad finally does when it comes to fan response and box office receipts. The film hits theaters Friday.
