The new Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) trailer has finally dropped and it promises to put Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn front and center in an all-female lineup of heroes and villains from DC Comics, including Huntress, Renee Montoya and Black Canary. One character missing from the preview though, despite being mentioned more than once, is Harley’s boyfriend the Joker, played by Jared Leto and arguably the most famous supervillain in all of comics. But there might be a good reason for his absence.
For one, Todd Phillips’ origin film for the character is headed to theaters this week and doesn’t feature Leto but rather, an entirely different take on the villain. Comic-savvy viewers might be able to distinguish between the two wildly different iterations of the same character, but regular audiences would only be confused. The Joker movie needs all the eyeballs it can get to battle the controversies surrounding the film and it makes sense to hold off on any appearances by other versions of the Clown Prince of Crime while it’s still in cinemas.
There’s also the fact that Birds of Prey is about Harley and her female cohorts, with the Joker appearing in a cameo at best. The last time a cameo for Mr. J was endlessly hyped was for Suicide Squad and the trailers for that film gave audiences the wrong impression that he was a central character in the movie, leading to disappointment when the actual flick came out.
Warner Bros. clearly wants to avoid a repeat of that mistake and in all likelihood, if at all the Joker shows up in Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the appearance will be kept under wraps until the audiences discover the cameo for themselves while sitting in the theater watching it. Whether the character will be played by Leto, however, or just a body double, is another question entirely.
