Joel Kinnaman on ‘Suicide Squad’ fiasco: There’re conflicting visions of what that film was going to be

After David Aye—director of the 2016 superhero film ‘Suicide Squad’—said that what he made in 2016 was ‘an amazing movie’ and that after fighting with Warner Bros. for releasing #ReleaseAyersCut, he vowed never to speak about this topic publicly ever again. 

Now, actor Joel Kinnaman, the actor played Rick Flag in Ayer's ‘Suicide Squad’ and reprises this role in Gunn's movie, too, says that he had met some of his ‘best friends’ while shooting for Ayer’s film. 

“We had an amazing experience shooting the first film. Some of the people that I got to know on that film are still some of my closest friends. So the OG Squad, I mean, we're still texting with each other. But the vision of what that film was going to be, it wasn't clear to everyone, you know. It wasn't like the producers, the filmmaker, the studio, everyone had the same vision. There were conflicting visions of what that film was going to be, and sometimes with these big budget studio films people start pulling at it from different directions, and then it doesn't really end up anywhere. I feel like that's what happened with the first Suicide Squad. It kind of ended up being neither here nor there. I think David was really setting out to do something much darker, much more emotional, and nihilistic in a way, at least in his portrayal of the Joker (who was played by Jared Leto in Ayers' film), his idea of the Joker, and I think the studio wanted something that was much more entertaining. I think the trailer for the first Suicide Squad really worked against us because it became so successful, [but] it wasn't really what the movie was like. And then I think they almost tried to reshape the movie to be more like the trailer, so there was complete division,” he was quoted sa saying by an entertainment portal. 

While ‘Suicide Squad’ was panned by critics globally, James Gunn’s ‘The Suicide Squad’ has received rave reviews thus far and has a high rating of 97 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. 

“When I saw the film completed I felt, yeah, this was the film that we set out to do," he says. "In this film, they trusted who James is, everyone has confidence in his vision. It was a joy to shoot the film and what you see is very much the script, but then I was surprised [because] it just seemed there were more layers to it than I had expected. I didn't see [in the script] the emotional depths that I felt were very unpretentiously woven into the film. Obviously, I'm hugely biased here, but I felt that that made the film transcend the genre, and the big spectacle of it, and made something that was a real work of art as well,” the actor concluded. 

‘The Suicide Squad’ features the original squad members Margot Robbie, Viola Davis and Jai Courtney, and new entrants Idris Elba and John Cena, among many others.

The film is slated to release in cinemas and on HBO Max August 6.