Suicide Squad Concept Art Seemingly Connects To Justice League

Deadshot and Harley in Suicide Squad

The DC live-action universe has had a unique tenure in theaters, full of peaks and valleys. Warner Bros. struggled to get the DCEU on its feet during its early stages, as the first few movies failed to impress critically. David Ayer's Suicide Squad was one of those first installments, and its performance wasn't exactly idea. The blockbuster made great money and even won an Oscar, but failed to live up to the expectations that came from the movie's first trailer. Ayer has been open about how studio interference affected Suicide Squad, he recently revealed a piece of concept art that seemingly would have connected the villain-centric movie to Zack Snyder's Justice League.

The main villain of Suicide Squad was Cara Delevingne's Enchantress, who built a mystical "machine" to end the world. Said machine was basically a giant light from the sky, which had been seen in a few other comic book movies. But an alternate design looks Enchantress was going to use Apokolips Tech like Steppenwolf in Justice League. David Ayer shared the Suicide Squad concept art, check it out below.

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Well, this is intriguing. It looks like Enchantress' world-ending plans might have originally been connected to the events of Zack Snyder's Justice League. Of course, other voices ultimately ended up drastically changing both Zack Snyder's blockbuster and the original Suicide Squad movie. FOMO alert.

This above image comes to us from the personal Twitter page of David Ayer himself. The Bright filmmaker regularly uses social media to directly communicate with the fanbase, especially regarding his process of creating Suicide Squad. He's not one to hold his tongue either, so there have been plenty of revelations from Ayer in the years since his DC debut hit theaters in 2016.

David Ayer previously spoked to his planned connections between Justice League and Suicide Squad, although this is surely a visual indication. Ayer originally planned for a Boom Tube to be used in the final battle of his villain-centric DC flick, but those plans were ultimately scrapped. He wanted to have connections to Apokolips in the movie, and it looks like that might have occurred courtesy of its villain. What's more, there were even early designs for Parademons.

In the end, these plans didn't come to fruition in Suicide Squad's theatrical cut, and it wasn't the only one of David Ayer's visions to be wiped from the movie before theaters. Much of Jared Leto's Joker was cut out, relegating him to a tertiary presence in the project. What's more, he's lamented that Harley's story was "eviscerated" in the final cut of Suicide Squad. Although that didn't stop Margot Robbie from stealing the show and getting her own spinoff.

It should be interesting to see how David Ayer's work on the original Suicide Squad ultimately affects James Gunn's upcoming sequel/reboot The Suicide Squad. Gunn no doubt has his own vision, as he's assembled a huge cast of actors. There are a few returning faces from Ayer's movie, including Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, Viola Davis' Amanda Waller, Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman as Colonel Rick Flag.

All will be revealed when The Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 6th, 2021. In the meantime, David Ayer will be working on Netflix's Bright 2. Be sure to check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Corey Chichizola
Movies Editor

Corey was born and raised in New Jersey. Graduated with degrees theater and literature from Ramapo College of New Jersey. After working in administrative theater for a year in New York, he started as the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. He's since been able to work himself up to reviews, phoners, and press junkets-- and is now able to appear on camera with some of his favorite actors... just not as he would have predicted as a kid. He's particularly proud of covering horror franchises like Scream and Halloween, as well as movie musicals like West Side Story. Favorite interviews include Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more.