'Suicide Squad' Deleted Scenes: What Was Cut And Why

By Peter ScirettaAug. 8, 2016 10:00 am EST

You've probably read by now the long and troubled story of Warner Bros.' meddling with Suicide Squad, which included extensive reshoots and the studio testing an alternate cut of the film which more closely matched the tone of the popular marketing campaign. We don't know how much of that is true, but cast members have hinted that there are a lot of scenes removed from the theatrical cut. So what is missing from the film? Let's take a look at the rumored list of Suicide Squad deleted scenes, followed up with some quotes from director David Ayer and Joker actor Jared Leto.

The following list of Suicide Squad deleted scenes comes from a Reddit user named Naydawwwg. The scene listing is not confirmed, but looks compiled from the shooting screenplay and reports from test screenings:

"In early cuts, the movie's opening detailed June Moon's possession by Enchantress in a real tome. Reshoots reshuffled the scene to be later in the movie in flashback form in favor of a new opening centered on Deadshot."

"Deadshot in the prison cell, watching the rain fall and thinking about his daughter."

"El Diablo observing the flame of a lit match, before putting it out due to his vow to no longer use his powers."

"El Diablo being escorted to a training center by being placed in a tube that fills with water to quell his flames, and then unceremoniously dropped onto the ground."

"Early interviews showed Captain Boomerang's racism and sexism, but the movie is light on examples of such behaviour, which have apparently been deleted. Most of them were reportedly directed at Katana, to whom Boomerang is attracted to."

"Early reports indicated more backstory for Killer Croc, revealing that he entire life as a social outcast due to his physical appearance and has convinced himself that he is beautiful in his own way. Croc crossed paths with Batman while working as muscle-for-hire for numerous Gotham's crime bosses, while secretly planning to take over one day. There were also scenes displaying his affinity for making sculptures out of discarded materials. Aside from jokes about Croc viewing himself as 'beautiful,' one of these were retained in the final cut."

"Also deleted was a scene where he becomes sick at the helicopter escort to Midway City, throws up half-digested pieces of goat, and then eats them again, disgusting the nearby Navy Seals."

"Early cuts reportedly included a passing reference to Slipknot being serial-rapist, likely to further paint him as unsympathetic to the audience ahead of his own death."

"More scenes of Rick Flag and June Moon's romantic relationship, including him, reading the files of the Suicide Squad recruits after Waller delivers them to him."

"Another scene where Flag and Moon are out on a date."

"Extended scene of Joker interrogating Captain Griggs, including the line, "I can't wait to show you my toys," which was in every trailer, but was removed from the movie."

"Joker and his men escaping after shooting up a restaurant. Harley, who is already affiliated with the Joker, follows them on a motorcycle and intercepts their car. Joker bangs his head against the glass in frustration."

"Joker and Harley then get into a fight, which ends with Harley pointing a gun at Joker's face. Joker sweet-talks Harley into lowering the gun, charming her, then backhands her across the face. Afterwards, he sweet-talks her again, and they kiss."

"Extended Ace Chemicals scene where Harley jumps into the chemicals. More bits of dialogue from Joker."

"Extended Batmobile chase scene with more interaction between Joker and Harley. One of the examples, presented in all the trailers, is the Joker punching the roof of his car."

"Harley using her baseball bat as a mock gun to play shoot at invisible foes."

"Extended scene of Joker breaking into the nano-bomb manufacture facility to arrange for Harley's neck-bomb to be disabled."

"More interactions between Harley and Boomerang. Early cuts apparently included her really disliking him despite growing affectionate to all the other members of the squad."

"Extended bar scene with Harley taking everyone's orders. Deadshot calls for a shot, Katana wants whiskey, Croc and Boomerang settle for beer, Harley asks Diablo wants, and he prefers water which she jokes, "is a good idea." The scene was featured in the trailers, but in the movie it cuts directly to Deadshot's speech about them all almost pulling the mission off."

"Removed several scenes with the Joker to repaint his relationship with Harley as more loving rather than abusive."

"Joker and Harley get into an argument after he rescues her in the hijacked helicopter. In early cuts he reportedly pushes her out to kill her, then the helicopter gets shot down. This was apparently reworked into the helicopter getting shot down first and Joker pushing her out to save her."

"Joker returns during the final battle in the subway station, face half-burnt from the helicopter crash, which apparently leads to a brief altercation with the Squad. He calls for Harley to escape with him but she refuses for once in order to help her friends, and the Joker escapes after throwing a live grenade at the group to cover his own escape."

It's no surprise that a lot of the Joker's scenes didn't make the theatrical cut. Jared Leto's clown prince barely appears in the final theatrical cut, despite appearing in a lot of the film's marketing. The way the story is set up, it seems obvious to involve him in that final subway station battle.

Jared Leto has been vocal about the removed material. In a new interview with BBC Radio 1, the actor said that his performance as the Joker in Suicide Squad is his "favorite work he's ever done in a movie," claiming there's enough there for an entire Joker film that could be constructed from the deleted scenes alone:

I think that I brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity, because I wanted to give a lot of options, and I think there's probably enough footage in this film for a Joker movie.

Leto also revealed that he had pushed filmmaker David Ayer for an R rating during production, saying that "it felt like, if a film was ever going to be rated R, it should be the one about the villains." Ayer seems to suggest otherwise, insisting to Collider that the film "was always going to be a PG-13 from its inception."

This thing was never intended to be R-rated so the material to do that didn't exist and I found myself being my own sort of traffic cop on set just keeping, you know, "Alright guys let's keep it family, we're not gonna do that, chill out. Don't say that, no, no. Put the blood away, we're not gonna see it. Say the F-bomb, then do it again without the F-bomb." It was a bit of an out-of-body experience after the movies I have made in the past, but at the same time we got the rating with no problem and I kind of like it, I liked the challenge of that and it's almost like in the '50s and the '40s the writing was spectacular because you had to talk around things and you had to be smart about how you communicate to people, and I enjoyed that challenge.

Suicide Squad director David Ayer says that while the theatrical release is two hours and 10 minutes, his first assembly cut of the film was two hours and 45 minutes. Here he talks about the process of finding the film in post-production, from assembly to completed theatrical cut, giving us some insight into why some of this material didn't make it into the final film:

That's a lot of shit, yeah. I think there's a misunderstanding about filmmaking where you can somehow have this crystal ball and understand exactly how everything is going to together and assemble together. A scriptwriter types word on a page, a black and white page, and when you're on set you're dealing with shots and your dealing with dailies, and so you have a seven minute shot and maybe only ten seconds of that shot is gonna end up in the movie. And there's infinite combinations, infinite knock-on effects, and it's this strange alchemy that happens and things that you thought during the writing phase breaking your back trying to explain and needs three pages to explain it, you realize it works with just a look on camera in the assembly. So it's always a moving target as you try and distil and condense down to the best movie, and this thing was a beast, we had over a million and a half feet of footage, with an ensemble movie, seven plus major characters that we have to introduce, a very complex story that is not your normal linear story and your introducing the audience to a whole new world, plus it just has my sort of sickness as a filmmaker in it, my vibe and attitude. So it just took a lot of work to find the movie, the movie was always there and even in the early cuts we knew we had something we knew it was going to work, but to get it there...wow.

Ayer has previously admitted that the "a chunk [of deleted scenes]" exist, and that the Blu-ray release of the movie will have "definitely over 10 minutes of material on there." He has insisted that this is his cut of the movie, denying the reports that an alternate studio-supervised edit won out. Sounds like we shouldn't expect a bigger, longer, director's cut on DVD.