While writer/director David Ayer’s Suicide Squad was a significant box office hit in 2016, it received generally negative reviews from critics, and as such was a disappointment for Warner Bros. after the harshly negative critical response (and relatively disappointing box office) of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice earlier that same year. Add in rumors of significant reshoots and fights over the final edit of the film, and Suicide Squad was far from the DCEU course correction many hoped it would be. So how did this once-promising auteur-driven DC movie end up being essentially erased by Warner Bros. just a few years later? It’s a long story.
