Before Warner Bros. drastically altered last year’s Justice League with a round of significant reshoots, the studio took its chainsaw to another DC Films release in David Ayer’s 2016 supervillain team-up Suicide Squad.
One of the biggest changes to that film revolved around The Joker, with Jared Leto’s role cut significantly, and the Clown Prince of Crime’s relationship with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn toned down to make it less abusive.
As we glimpsed in the trailers and marketing material, The Joker would also have been more involved in the film’s third act, with the Clown Prince of Crime reappearing after the helicopter crash to confront Task Force X.
Taking to Twitter, director Ayer has revealed his original plans for Leto’s Joker, stating that: “After Joker dropped [Harley] from the [helicopter] and crashed, Enchantress made a deal with him. He was going to take Harley home and be “King of Gotham”. Harley stood up to him and refused to betray her new friends. The Squad turned on him and he escaped.”
Instead, Warner Bros. opted instead to have Joker made his grand return at the end of the movie, springing Harley from Belle Reve prison.
SEE ALSO: David Ayer addresses Suicide Squad criticism, and what he’d change in hindsight
SEE ALSO: Jared Leto says there are enough deleted scenes from Suicide Squad for a Joker movie
As yet, we’re unsure when Leto’s Joker will next make an appearance in the DC Extended Universe. It’s possible he could appear in Suicide Squad 2, which is rumoured to begin production later this year, while Warner Bros. is also developing a Joker and Harley Quinn movie. And of course, we also have a non-DCEU Joker origin story from Todd Phillips (The Hangover) gearing up to start filming, with Joaquin Phoenix strongly linked to the role of the Dark Knight’s arch-enemy.
It feels good to be bad…Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity. U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do. However, once they realize they weren’t picked to succeed but chosen for their patent culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it’s every man for himself?
Suicide Squad sees David Ayer (Fury) directing a cast that includes Will Smith (Focus) as Deadshot, Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) as The Joker, Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney (Terminator Genisys) as Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop) as Rick Flag, Viola Davis (The Help) as Amanda Waller, Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns) as Enchantress, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Thor: The Dark World) as Killer Croc, Jay Hernandez (Hostel) as El Diablo, Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers) as Slipknot, Jim Parrack (Fury) as Johnny Frost, Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) as Batman, newcomer Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Common (Selma) as Monster T, Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project) as Captain Griggs and Scott Eastwood (The Longest Ride) as Lieutenant ‘GQ’ Edwards.
