I find it doubtful that this film was “the point of no return” for the DCEU. First because Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad were both much better takes on the ragtag bunch of crooks premise, so it wasn’t a dealbreaker for the franchise. And second because, from what we’ve heard of the “Ayer Cut”, it wasn’t very good anyway. It was pretty much the same movie told in chronological order with less annoying editing. At most it would probably be mediocre.
From my perspective, the DCEU\'s reputation was officially beyond salvation after SS was released. Two back-to-back bad movies in a row? Sure, Wonder Woman was good, but I think that just shows how low our expectations were. When Justice League came out and it was terrible, we weren\'t shocked, it was just more of the same; we expected the DCEU to be bad at that point. Maybe you\'re right and SS was never going to be good... but if it had been good, then I think the trajectory of the franchise might\'ve been different. I guess we\'ll never know.
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The Point of No Return for the DCEU
They say there's a benefit to hindsight in that you can see where all your bad decisions began and where you could've avoided them. For this movie, it wasn't so much where they began as much as "where they could've stopped and saved themselves." Yes, WB cut 30 minutes from the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman, but in all fairness, I find it hard to believe the intact film would've gotten a better reception. So, BvS was pretty much doomed, but Suicide Squad had potential–"Yeah," we said, "BvS might've been awful, but maybe Suidice Squad could pull it off and BvS will be just the 'one bad one' of this series."
And this is where the timeline meets a fork in the road:
1) Where David Ayer makes a bold, artistic, and competent film about a cult-favorite team of Dirty Dozen-style supervillains that reignites confidence in a fledgling franchise.
2) Where the DCEU becomes a complete joke, punctuated by pretty good highs followed by embarrassing, dizzyingly lows.
And it all hinged on one thing–Suicide Squad not sucking.
Better luck next time, everybody.
Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about the film. Uh, it's a fucking mess, but you knew that already.
Honestly the film itself is largely irrelevant compared to what was going on around it, which was just studio fuckery that seemingly became the industry-standard afterward.
It's a shame because I could easily see what Ayer was going for: Amanda Waller as this quasi-God/Devil mix; Belle Reve being this pseudo-Hell filled with condemned souls who all, to some extent, recognize they're objectively bad people; The Enchantress as this Satan-character that rebels against authority to conquer the world; the movie then becoming a Walk Through Hell about possibly finding redemption.
Sadly, the rumored "Ayer Cut" being released is about as likely as apes retaking the Earth at this point, so we'll never know for sure.
It's movies like Suicide Squad that give Superhero/Comic Book Movies a bad name–not because it was bad, but because it had a chance to possibly be good before the studio ruined it. Which is something that hasn't stopped happening to this day, and that is the saddest thing of all–a film can be a complete garbage fire, ruin the trajectory of careers, and waste time, money, and effort, and the studios will go on not having learned a fucking thing.
Although I guess The Suicide Squad was allowed to be good, so maybe they did briefly learn something.