Suicide Squad director David Ayer recently shared previously unseen concept art from the 2016 DC Extended Universe movie, showing alternate designs for the Joker and Enchantress.
The Joker concept art, which Ayer shared on Twitter, shows a tattoo-free version of Jared Leto’s Clown Prince of Crime, with purple smoke and skulls swirling around the character.
After someone criticized Ayer’s post for attempting to trick the DC fandom into believing that he never wanted Leto’s Joker to look the way he did in the final cut of Suicide Squad, the director reiterated that he was merely sharing concept art.
“It ain’t that deep,” he hit back. “The idea was Enchantress was altering the reality around her and changing the environment. The Joker image is a simple take on that concept,” he added, suggesting that the Enchantress was responsible for the purple smoke and skulls surrounding the Joker.
Ayer also shared concept art of Enchantress using her reality-altering powers to further illustrate how this would have looked in the film if they had decided to move forward with this idea.
Will DC ever release the Ayer cut of Suicide Squad?
After the success of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, fans have attempted to get DC to release Ayer’s original cut of Suicide Squad with the #ReleaseTheAyerCut campaign. So far, the fandom has been unsuccessful, although Ayer is hopeful that one day his vision — which was a Dirty Dozen-style action movie with supervillain protagonists — will be released.
The director recently shared that DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has expressed interest in releasing the Ayer Cut, writing on Twitter that “Gunn told me it would have it’s time to be shared.” He added that Gunn “absolutely deserves to launch his DC Universe without more drama about old projects.”
Suicide Squad, as well as its standalone sequel The Suicide Squad, is available to stream on Max.
