More than a few legendary actors have played the Clown Prince of Crime, but even among
them, Jared Leto's Joker has walked a long, strange path. We're here to explain the character's
journey, from Suicide Squad to the Snyder cut.
In Justin Marks' original draft of the Suicide Squad screenplay, the Joker doesn't actually
appear at all. David Ayer's revisions later added the Joker as a fundamental element of
the story. Leto himself wasn't even the first choice for the character: Ryan Gosling had
originally been approached for the role. Similarly, the Joker's longtime love interest, Harley
Quinn, came close to being played by Cara Delevingne , before she snagged the role of
the Enchantress instead.
Up to the casting announcement, Leto played coy. Believe it or not, he had originally
looked into playing the titular character in Doctor Strange, but Marvel wanted a bigger
star for the role, to sell a lesser-known character to audiences. This encouraged Leto
to pursue Warner Bros., who jumped at the chance to cast the Academy Award-winning performer
in such an iconic role. The rest is history.
Official set photos of Leto's Joker were released in April 2015, to mixed reception. The photos
show the actor sporting Joker's short green locks, pale complexion, and wild grin. Unfortunately,
the photos also showed another notable set of features, however, which were received
with less enthusiasm: This Joker sports metal grills over his top and bottom rows of teeth,
and a slew of tattoos.
Among his many tattoos are massive grins spread across his forearm and hand, a skull in a
jester hat on his chest, dozens of iterations of "HA HA HA" down his arm, and the word "Damaged"
written in cursive across his forehead. One thing was clear: This Joker was an entirely
new creation.
Joker's "HA HA HA" tattoos nod at some heavily hinted backstory from 2016's Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice, in which a Robin costume defaced by yellow letters spelling out "HA
HA HA" is glimpsed among Batman's things in the Batcave. Knowing Batman, it's likely on
display as a solemn reminder of his failure to protect Robin, who is implied to have died
at the Joker's hand in Snyder's take on the DCEU.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ayer further explained the Joker's look and
its connection to Batman:
"Joker killed Robin and Batman basically smashes his teeth out and locks him up in Arkham Asylum.
It's in the asylum where Joker would have done the 'damaged' tattoo as a message to
Batman saying, 'You've damaged me. I was so beautiful before and now you've destroyed
my face.' That's where the grill comes from."
However, Ayer has come to have reservations about the creative choice. When asked about
the decision in 2018, he replied,
"Yes I have to fall on that sword. It was one step too far."
Leto's behavior on the Suicide Squad set became the subject of much speculation and controversy.
Rumors circulated about the "gifts" he allegedly sent to various members of the cast: Adam
Beach, who played Slipknot, told E! that he sent the entire cast a dead hog, in addition
to other strange items.
"He sent [Margot Robbie] a nice love letter with a black box with a rat in it — a live
rat."
The rat initially freaked out Robbie, but she eventually bonded with the animal and
named him Rat Rat.
These antics gave Leto a curious reputation. It was even falsely rumored that Leto sent
a dead rat to his co-stars — likely the result of loose public memory of the very
much alive rat gift.
Suicide Squad was met with overwhelming critical derision upon release, with Leto's Joker acting
as something of a flashpoint of serious disdain. As Insider critic Jacob Shamsian put it,
"Leto's version is ... a gangster who has a clown makeup fetish. He doesn't have any
dastardly plans or even does anything particularly clever. He's just a really angry dude who
probably regrets his tattoos."
Other critics eviscerated the film's portrayal of the Joker-Quinn relationship as a facile
romanticization of abuse.
All in all, critics and moviegoers ripped Leto's Joker apart. Suicide Squad's Joker
became something of a symbol of the DCEU's failures.
"I am not someone who is loved. I am an idea."
For all the sound and fury kicked up over the Joker's role in Suicide Squad, the final
cut of the film actually deprives him of any real spotlight. The Joker is, in fact, barely
in the movie at all. Leto expressed significant surprise and was clearly upset with the exclusion.
When asked by IGN if he was upset about the scenes that were cut, he responded,
"Were there any [scenes] that didn't get cut? I'm asking you, were there any that didn't
get cut? There were so many scenes that got cut from the movie, I couldn't even start.
I think that the Joker ... we did a lot of experimentation on the set, we explored a
lot. There's so much that we shot that's not in the film."
For his part, Ayer also expressed regrets about the Joker being so tangential to the
story. As he noted,
"Wish I had a time machine. I'd make Joker the main villain and engineer a more grounded
story..."
In August 2017, it was announced that a Joker and Harley Quinn movie was headed to the silver
screen. The proposed DC romance was said to be a "criminal love story," memorably described
by one source as "When Harry Met Sally on Benzedrine ." It was intended to enter production
after the then-planned Suicide Squad sequel wrapped up — but, of course, things did
not work out that way.
As of this video, while the film is still on Leto's IMDb page, it is heavily rumored
to have been cancelled. This speculation, combined with Margot Robbie's dismissal of
the Harley-Joker relationship and Birds of Prey's definitive ending of it, all signal
that this film is extremely unlikely to happen.
In June 2018, it was announced that Leto was going to star in a solo Joker outing. At the
time, rumors were also swirling regarding two proposed approaches to the DCEU that could
theoretically exist simultaneously. One slate of movies would maintain established continuity,
while the other would do its own thing, allowing filmmakers to put their own unique stamp on
these iconic characters.
At this point, both Leto's Joker film and the Todd Phillips-helmed Joker movie, released
in 2019, were reportedly in development. Phillips' film was reported to be part of the branch
of DC movies that would be distinct from the DCEU's continuity. However, Leto's Joker did
not come to fruition at all, as was initially planned.
Instead, DC moved on from DCEU continuity entirely, in a soft reboot of sorts. Harley
Quinn has carried forward through Birds of Prey and into James Gunn's The Suicide Squad,
but she has done so without her puddin'. In effect, Leto's solo Joker outing has been
left in permanent limbo, with Leto reportedly feeling strung along by empty promises.
As initial plans for the DCEU were abandoned in light of the success of standalone movies
like Joker, so too was Leto's Joker tossed on the scrap heap of cinematic history. 2017's
Justice League does not include his interpretation of the character at all. Birds of Prey torches
the Joker-Harley relationship without a single Leto appearance. Matt Reeves' Batman films
occur far outside the previously-established DC continuity. James Gunn's reboot, The Suicide
Squad, tells a new story that is wholly separate from the first Suicide Squad film.
Despite initial promises that Joaquin Phoenix's turn as the Joker would not impede Leto's
own standalone film, reports indicate that Leto was unhappy to learn of the competing
film. Allegedly, Leto complained heavily to his agents at CAA and asked his music manager,
Irving Azoff, to call the head of Warners' parent company in the hopes of ending Phillips'
film. Leto's camp denies these claims, while Azoff, who has since parted ways with Leto,
offered no comment.
Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Leto felt his agents should have stuck up more
fiercely for his take on the Joker, fought Phillips' movie more adamantly, and told him
about the competing project sooner. Leto has since left CAA for WME, but his team claims
the alternate Joker adaptation had no role in the decision. One unnamed source close
to the situation declared Leto's Joker to be effectively dead, asking,
"How do you play the Joker you established following [Phoenix]? It kind of ends his Joker
run."
2017's Justice League produced an outcry among fans. They argued that director Zack Snyder,
who left the project following a family tragedy, should be allowed to recut and release the
film to reflect his original directorial vision. Online fan campaigns called for Warner executives
to "#ReleaseTheSnyderCut," a cry that was eventually bolstered by the film's own stars.
Just when it seemed that Leto's future in the DC films was all but done, a surprising
thing happened: In May 2020, Warner Bros. announced that the Snyder cut was real, and
that they would be releasing it on the HBO Max streaming platform in 2021.
Among all the changes and additions the Snyder cut makes to Justice League is a post-apocalyptic
future scene that includes a brand-new version of Leto's Joker. The scene envisions a dystopic
DC universe where beloved characters have been lost and the world is ruled by a tyrant.
Our heroes are in such disarray they have to work with traditional villains — villains
like Leto's Joker, back in the DC picture at last.
That the Joker is part of Zack Snyder's Justice League is surprising enough. Even more jaw-dropping
is the fact that this Joker is entirely and fully redesigned. Gone are the tattoos, the
short hair, and the visible grill. Instead, we find an apocalypse-weary future Joker with
a pained laugh, long hair, and multiple scars. He's no longer dressed as a flashy gangster,
instead wearing long, threadbare clothing — which makes sense, as his criminal empire
would have had to crumble in such a wasteland. Photos released in the lead-up to the debut
of Zack Snyder's Justice League signaled this change in design: They reveal a menacing,
weary, much more frightening version of the character than the neon criminal we saw in
2016.
These aesthetic changes are meant to reflect changes in the character's circumstances.
As Leto put it in an interview with Stephen Colbert, Suicide Squad Joker and Snyder Joker
are "some years apart."
"I think it's an evolution, it's some years apart, certainly different directors..."
The new look was met with a largely positive reception, especially when contrasted against
the reception of the Suicide Squad design.
When the February 14th trailer for Zack Snyder's Justice League premiered, fans celebrated
the new Darkseid footage, enhanced battle sequences, and the brand new look for DC villain
Steppenwolf. Another interesting addition also made its debut: A scene between Ben Affleck's
Batman and Jared Leto's Joker glimpsed at the tail end of the trailer. His back turned
towards the camera, the Joker mutters,
"We live in a society where honor is a distant memory. Isn't that right?"
That particular scene was written in quarantine by Snyder, who coaxed a hesitant Leto into
returning to the character for the project. The scene was filmed in three days with Affleck
and Leto shooting in separate locations due to schedule constraints. The "We live in a
society" line was actually ad-libbed by Leto. As he told Stephen Colbert, it was
"an ad-lib that I threw out on the day shooting it and it ended up in the trailer and then
kind of went viral."
As momentum built towards the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, some fans began to
advocate for the release of an "Ayer cut" of Suicide Squad. As David Ayer has repeatedly
insisted, the Suicide Squad that hit theaters diverges heavily from his intended vision.
According to Ayer, the "first 40 minutes" of the film were cut. The film was also supposed
to tie heavily into Justice League, an approach that was abandoned.
However, don't get your hopes up that the Snyder Cut might lead to Ayer getting his
own prestige re-edit. WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff has stated bluntly,
"We won't be developing David Ayer's cut."
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