DC President Reveals Where ‘Suicide Squad’ And ‘Batman V Superman’ Went Wrong

Wonder Woman has helped to restore faith in the DC Extended Universe. Not only has it been met with hugely impressive reviews, scoring 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it set the record for the biggest domestic opening for a female director, too. It was a much-needed boost for the DCEU, as their 2016 releases Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Suicide Squad were both savaged by critics.

In the wake of the poor critical responses to these films, Warner Bros. and those involved with the DC Extended Universe insisted that because Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice grossed $873.3 million and Suicide Squad brought in $745.6 million they were both successes. Jon Berg, who is currently the co-president of DC Films alongside Geoff Johns, has now become more candid about Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Suicide Squad, admitting that both films were fatally flawed.

“There are lessons from every movie. You would be silly not to analyze how a movie was received — what went right and what went wrong on the making of a movie. On Suicide Squad, the movie did incredibly well commercially. It didn’t work narratively. You had some great casting and some great characterizations, but where the story fell down was on narrative, on plot. We could do better. Batman v. Superman was tonally dark. People didn’t respond to that.”

Jon Berg made this admission regarding both Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad to Variety during a joint interview with Geoff Johns, as the co-presidents of DC Films looked to celebrate the recent success of Wonder Woman.

This isn’t the first time that someone close to both Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad has attacked the films. Just over two months after Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel sequel was released Jeremy Irons, who played Alfred Pennyworth in the blockbuster opposite Ben Affleck’s Batman, admitted to the Daily Mail that the film was “overstuffed” and “very muddled.”

However, there was a much more brutal assessment of Suicide Squad, which came courtesy of its own writer and director David Ayer. Back in January, around five months after the release of the film, David Ayer took to Twitter to admit that, in hindsight, he had some regrets about how Suicide Squad turned out. David Ayer admitted that it was a mistake to cut so many of Jared Leto’s scenes as the Joker, something that Margot Robbie and Leto had teased while promoting the film.

David Ayer also insisted that if he had the chance again he would make a “more grounded story,” too. The filmmaker will get a chance to do just that with a DC Film as he has been hired to direct Gotham City Sirens, which will focus on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, and will hopefully be able to build upon Wonder Woman’s success.

[Featured Image by Warner Bros]