Justice League wouldn’t have been the first movie to feature parademons.
That’s according to David Ayer himself, whose recent tweets confirm something that’s been rumoured for a while, based on extant concept art and some solid guesswork: that an early version of Suicide Squad had explicit ties to Apokolips and Darkseid, with Steppenwolf as the big baddie.
This is right. Enchantress was under the control of a mother box and Steppenwolfe was prepping an invasion with a boom tube. Had to lose that then the JL story arcs evolved. https://t.co/pSAag9rpZq
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) November 25, 2018
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) November 25, 2018
Exactly — Steppenwolf was the original boss fight. https://t.co/p3lgrU77LB
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) November 25, 2018
This sounds, honestly, like a really strong narrative idea, tying it into the rest of the DC Extended Universe, setting up a Justice League Darkseid movie, and generally just being a lot radder than what we got. It’s not clear why the direction of the film was changed—to make it more standalone, perhaps—but it’s a meaningful loss. I’m not suggesting we start lobbying Warner Bros. for lost content—no one is ever suggesting that, ever, please stop doing that—but I do want to see that non-existent movie. Sounds fun.