Jared Leto’s addition to the cast of Justice League for Zack Snyder’s reshoots was completely unexpected and came out of the blue, especially when it appeared as though his divisive take on the Clown Prince of Crime had been written out of the franchise for good in Birds of Prey, with Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck having since stolen the limelight.
As soon as Leto was confirmed to be slapping on the face paint once more, though, the rumor mill instantly went into overdrive and all of a sudden, he was being lined up to star in countless film and television projects, even though the fact that Snyder admitted he’d only shot four or five minutes of new footage seemingly makes it clear that the Joker’s role in the story isn’t a particularly substantial one.
That being said, we know that he’s set to factor into the extended Knightmare sequence, and could even forge an uneasy alliance with Ben Affleck’s Batman as the two archenemies put their differences to one side in order to stop Darkseid from enslaving humanity. Of course, up until this point, the Dark Knight and the Jester of Genocide’s interactions in the DCEU have been limited to a single scene in Suicide Squad, but insider Daniel Richtman now claims that that could all be about to change.
According to the tipster, Leto wants either a movie or a TV show that would revolve around the events that led to the Joker murdering Robin and burning Wayne Manor to the ground, something that was only very briefly hinted at in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice but has been accepted as official DCEU canon. It certainly sounds like an interesting idea, but given the sheer volume of hypothetical projects the actor has been linked to, we’ll have to wait and see which ones actually make it into active development.
