The effect that even a relatively minor piece of casting news can have on the Hollywood rumor mill is incredible, as Jared Leto’s Joker has been discovering recently. The actor was announced to be reprising his Suicide Squad role for Zack Snyder’s Justice League reshoots, and all of sudden he’s been linked to every upcoming and hypothetical DCEU project under the sun.
Leto’s only going to appear in the Snyder Cut for one or two scenes, after the filmmaker confirmed that his additional footage would run for five minutes tops, with Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke, Amber Heard’s Mera and Ben Affleck’s Batman among the other names who suited up for the reshoots and need to share the brief extra screen time. But that’s more than enough to excite the fans, as this time last year, the canonical Clown Prince of Crime was an afterthought, having seemingly been written out of the franchise for good, with the use of a body double no less, in Birds of Prey.
Of course, Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck stole all of the limelight recently, which clearly didn’t sit well with Leto after he reportedly tried to get the studio to cancel Todd Phillips’ Joker, but insider Daniel Richtman is now claiming that the Academy Award winner is pushing for his Jester of Genocide to become an R-rated presence moving forward as well, which would increase the levels of violence and profanity in his performances greatly.
And while Leto isn’t officially signed on to anything else at the moment, he did admit that he was open to a more permanent return to the fold. That being said, the 49 year-old has been the subject of so much intense speculation surrounding his future as the Joker over the last few months that everything should be viewed with skepticism until we get confirmation from either the actor or the studio that a deal is 100% done.
