Suicide Squad editor David Hickman has given more details on the original vision for the 2016 film and says it was “much darker” and less comedy-focused than the end product wound up being.
“I would like to see David [Ayer]’s final version of the film,” said Hickman in an interview with CinemaBlend. “I saw what David was trying to do with the film and I thought it was a pretty bold film. It was less comedy. It was a much darker film. It was almost like a Black Hawk Down type thing. It was just very militarized, very serious. I mean, of course, there were supposed to be comedic moments with Will Smith, but it was a darker film. I like where David was going with it and it would be really nice to see him be able to finish what he started.”
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Hickman was also impressed by Jared Leto’s performance as The Joker in Suicide Squad, but says it was difficult to find a place for a lot of his footage.
“Jared Leto, I thought, did a really good job of playing the Joker. I know there’s a lot of opinions on the matter, but I really liked what he did. He really brought a psychotic character to life and because of the running time and because Jared provided so much material we were not able to use a lot of it. And for a lot of the material, we just couldn’t find a purpose for it because sometimes he would just go off on such crazy, insane tangents and it would be really hard to weave it into the film. Sometimes it just wasn’t appropriate for what he was doing but, it would have been nice to have more of that Joker character a little bit more fleshed out then what came out in the movie.”
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The series is now being continued under the direction of James Gunn, and Hickman is excited to see where The Suicide Squad goes since he’s a fan of Gunn’s films.