First he left the Suicide Squad sequel, and then the upcoming Scarface remake. Finally, after Comic Con this past weekend, it looked as though David Ayer may be leaving another big ticket film, the spinoff to last year’s Suicide Squad called Gotham City Sirens — film that would star Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn, and according to rumors, Poison Ivy as well. Rumors began to spread on the subject after the Warner Bros. panel at SDCC when the film was not mentioned in the upcoming slate.
Ayer was in attendance at Comic-Con, but to promote his Netflix Will Smith-starrer Bright. While there, the director revealed during a Q&A, “I don’t think people realize the situation filmmakers face,” he said. “[Bright] isn’t like, some bullshit standard issue studio PG-13 movie. I was able to do some real shit here.” The only studio PG-13 movie that Ayer has ever made is Suicide Squad. So, aside from bashing his own (studio manipulated) work, he also raised speculation on his returning to the DC universe altogether. For Ayer fans, the director is much more well known for his gritty realism in such R-rated films as End of Watch or Fury — a combo that in theory would make him perfect for darker DC fare like Suicide Squad, but perhaps not in practice after being filtered through the studio machine.
Despite these rumors, and Ayer’s clear disgruntled attitude toward the whole Warner Bros. system thus far, his team has shut down any news of his exit. The director’s reps have confirmed that the project is still in development with him attached and writing the script, according to Slash Film. To top it off, Ayer took to Twitter himself to quiet the hysteria, delivering a somewhat cryptic post of a Harley Quinn photo and no caption (below). So for now, it looks like Gotham City Sirens will still sing with Ayer here to stay.
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