Although the demand for Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League was fulfilled on March 18th, DC’s parent company Warner Bros. has no plans to follow suit with a David Ayer-cut of Suicide Squad (2016). While Warner Bros. can confirm that the superhero universe will be expanding with new characters and new media content including video games and television series, another director’s cut is not going to happen. 

Along with that, WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff affirms the Snyder-verse has come to an end, stating “We’re just so happy that he could bring his cut of the Justice League to life because that wasn’t in the plan until about a year ago. With that comes the completion of his trilogy.” 

The buzz surrounding #ReleasetheAyerCut seems to have begun with a tweet by Ayer himself in May 2020. In the tweet, Ayer responds to a thread discussing Suicide Squad: “My cut would be easy to complete. It would be incredibly cathartic for me. It’s exhausting getting your ass kicked for a film that got the Edward Scissorhands treatment. The film I made has never been seen.” 

The hashtag also comes on the heels of director James Gunn’s highly-anticipated The Suicide Squad which will see its release August 2021. David Ayer’s 2016-version met lackluster reviews with a Metascore of 40 out of 100 and a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the same vein as #ReleasetheSnyderCut, #ReleasetheAyerCut arose after the final cut was critically trashed and the director intimated that his original vision for the film was not fulfilled, leading the fandom to call for a better alternative. Unfortunately, this time it’s a no-go as Sarnoff confirms, “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut.”

Despite this veto, Sarnoff is excited to share that the DC Universe will see improvements in other areas of the franchise. One project in the works is a collaboration with Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of novel Between the World, on a new Superman film. She also shares that a Latinx hero named Blue Beetle may soon be joining the ranks of Batman and Harley Quinn onscreen. So, instead of another director’s cut, DC has new and exciting initiatives in the works, with a focus on curating “multi-dimensional DC characters” (Sarnoff) at its forefront.