Based on a box office take of $325 million and the sheer number of women who dressed up like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn for Halloween the last two years, Suicide Squad is one of the most successful superhero movies of all time. (Okay, supervillain movies — it primarily follows around a bunch of Batman villains, such as the Joker, memorably, bizarrely, and brazenly portrayed by Jared Leto.
Still, a lot of people did not care for Suicide Squad. It’s currently got a lowly 26 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, for example. Another party not overall pleased with the movie: David Ayer, a writer and director who…wrote and directed Suicide Squad.
Over the weekend, Norman D. Golden, a writer and producer who starred as the kid in the 1993 movie Cop and a Half, tweeted at Ayer to tell him how much he liked the movie, critics be damned.
https://twitter.com/NormanGoldenll/status/934832255356293123
About 20 minutes later, Ayer himself responded with thanks…and regrets.
Yeah it was a big fun silly movie. It could have been a bigger success had I done it a little different. But it did great and made an impression.
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) November 26, 2017
Before long, more fans weighed in with their questions and comments for Ayer and he finally admitted what everybody kind of knew all along what was evidently wrong with the movie: Not enough Joker. Seriously. They had one of the famous villains of all time played by an Oscar-winning actor…and he’s barely in the movie. Ayer feels you, disappointed fans.
Believe me. I agonize over this. Yes. Joker should have been main bad guy.
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) November 26, 2017
Sometimes you just can’t please everyone…up to and including yourself.