It’s fair to say that Jared Leto’s take on the Joker in Suicide Squad was one of the most polarizing elements of the already divisive movie. Nevertheless, many fans would still like to see his Clown Prince of Crime return in a future film to square off against Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight. The most obvious place for them to butt heads would, of course, be The Batman, the upcoming solo outing starring Gotham’s protector.
While we still don’t have confirmation of his involvement in the project just yet  – though rumors point to it happening – a new fan poster imagines Leto’s Joker as the main antagonist of the movie. Courtesy of MessyPandas, it sees the Joker holding a broken and bloodied Batarang to his lips in a way that resembles his classic manic grin. It might be simple, but it’s a pretty impressive piece with a flavour of The Dark Knight‘s marketing campaign to it.
Interestingly, the poster only features Leto’s face and doesn’t highlight all the accessories his version of the character has (the tattoos, the neon-coloured clothes, etc). Seeing as these elements didn’t receive a lot of love from most quarters, it does seem likely that if Leto returns in The Batman, he’ll lose the tats and the threads and be reimagined as something closer to the classic iteration of the Joker. Or at least, that’s what we hope.
So, what are the chances that Leto will appear in The Batman? Well, they seemed slim back when Ben Affleck was writing and directing the movie, as Joe Manganiello was set to play Deathstroke as the central villain. Lately, however, this strategy seems to have been rethought. The most recent rumour goes that Batman will now fight a triumvirate of enemies. Namely, Deathstroke, Scarecrow and – yes – the Joker.
The Batman is directed by Matt Reeves and while there’s no release date just yet, we expect it to arrive in 2019.
