Suicide Squad Directer David Ayer Responds to Bad Reviews While Fans Petition to Shut Down Rotten Tomatoes

Suicide Squad isn’t even out yet, but already, the battle between “fans” and “critics” has begun (as if those two are somehow mutually exclusive groups). While director David Ayer has encouraging words for the film in the face of its currently abysmal 33% Rotten Tomatoes score, some fans—who can’t have even seen the movie yet, mind you—have signed a petition to get the site taken down.

That, as we know, is nonsense not only because Rotten Tomatoes is a review aggregator and has very limited control over what a given movie’s score winds up being, but also because there’s no way anyone is taking down a website over a change.org petition. The creator of the petition even admits as much in an update: “A petition definitely won’t shut down the site[.] The aim of the petition is to deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people disagree with their reviews. A lot of people the supporters and the opponents of the petition act like we are already going right now to shut down the site[,] not it’s just a way to express our anger.”

But … anger over what? Well, the perceived slight of “critics always [giving] The DC Extended Universe movies unjust Bad Reviews,” of course! As examples, only Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad are mentioned, so fully one half of the examples haven’t even been seen by those signing the petition. Don’t worry, though; I’m sure the 10,000+ people who have signed the petition so far are going to like this movie no matter what, so I can understand why they don’t think seeing it is a prerequisite to criticizing the reviews.

Meanwhile, David Ayer had a less “burn it to the ground” response to criticism, saying on Twitter, “I love the movie and believe in it. Made it for the fans. Best experience of my life.” So Ayer’s not quite as openly suggesting that the reviews are biased, but he’s definitely playing on that same critics vs. fans dynamic that was brought up in response to Batman v Superman. We’ll have to wait and see what “the fans” think after the movie debuts on Friday, but I have to imagine that what would really please fans most is a movie that’s actually good.

(via GamesRadar, featured image via Warner Bros.)

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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