Suicide Squad is now mere hours away from either thrilling or puzzling audiences across the country, fighting an uphill battle against a swath of bad reviews and whisperings of behind-the-scenes turmoil. The film's trailers and playful social media presence hint at a movie seemingly too edgy for its PG-13 rating, but playful enough to not get bogged down in Batman v Superman territory. But critics can't seem to reconcile the film's apparently competing tones, prompting the film to currently be resting on a not-so-great Rotten Tomatoes average of 34 percent.
Dedicated DC stans are now pointing the finger at critics for the film's bad press, with Dorklyreporting that a Change.org petition seemingly made in jest has started gaining some serious steam. The name of the petition? Shut Down Rotten Tomatoes. "The aim of the petition is to deliver a message to the critics that there is a lot of people disagree with their reviews [sic]," a petition update posted Wednesday states. "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 [sic]."
The petition page has also embedded tweets that are clearly mocking the very existence of this petition, though that hasn't stopped it from garnering nearly 13,000 signatures at the time of publication.
But director David Ayer isn't at all here for the bad reviews, telling his Twitter followers Tuesday that he did it all for the fans and no one else:
Will Rotten Tomatoes be shut down? Hell no. Get real. Will fans, i.e. not critics, like Ayer's movie? Find out Friday.
