‘Suicide Squad’ Director David Ayer Confirms Fan Theory About Joker, Fake Harley Quinn

Director David Ayer, who helmed 2016’s big-screen adaptation of DC Comic’s Suicide Squad, took to Twitter on Saturday to confirm a fan theory regarding the Joker and Harley Quinn. The theory, which was posited by Twitter user @ColdBloodedJoke, centers on the idea that a mysterious woman in red who was visible on-set in behind-the-scenes photos and promotional footage — but was either not present or was digitally removed from the theatrical cut of the film — was actually a fake or surrogate Harley Quinn.

“It’s not wrong,” Ayer stated when prompted to comment on the hypothesis by another user.

The original tweet, which was posted one day earlier, included side-by-side comparisons of the same scene as shown in the final, theatrical version, as well as the behind-the-scenes/promotional footage. In the latter, an unidentified woman in a red dress is sprawled out on a small sofa, while she is conspicuously absent in the former.

The tweet also made reference to an episode of the animated series The New Batman Adventures titled “Joker’s Millions,” in which the Joker hires a replacement Harley Quinn while the actual Harley is locked up in Arkham Asylum. In the episode, the Joker grows weary of Fake Harley and is driven by rage to attempt to shoot her before one of his henchmen intervenes.

In the Suicide Squad movie, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is similarly being held in captivity at Arkham Asylum before she is released to join the titular team of villains and antiheroes. The fan theory further posited that the cinematic Joker (Jared Leto) was hiring or kidnapping women to replace or imitate her while she was locked up until he became disinterested or angry with them and killed them.

The woman in red is just one example of the dramatic changes to the movie that were made by Ayer at the behest of Warner Bros., the studio responsible for the DC Extended Universe.

“My soulful drama was beaten into a ‘comedy,'” he later said about the production.

As shared previously by The Inquisitr, fans have been calling for the release of the “Ayer Cut” for some time. Last month, the hashtag “#ReleaseTheAyerCut” trended on Twitter and it continues to make the rounds even now.

For his part, Ayer has said that a new cut of the movie, which could potentially include the reinsertion of the replacement Harley Quinn, would be “easy to complete,” tweeting in May that re-cutting the film would be “cathartic” for him and stating that Suicide Squad got “the Edward Scissorhands treatment” from the studio.

“The film I made has never been seen,” he added.