This time last year, the prospect of seeing Ben Affleck’s Batman sharing the screen with Jared Leto’s Joker seemed like a pipe dream. Affleck was done as The Dark Knight, having walked away from both the Batsuit and director’s chair on The Batman, and Leto’s Clown Prince of Crime was quickly becoming a distant memory thanks to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning turn in Joker.
However, here we are, just weeks away from seeing the two enemies together on screen as part of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, both actors having (somewhat surprisingly) reprised their roles late last year to take part in additional photography for The Snyder Cut ahead of next month’s HBO Max release.
Now, speaking to the I Minutemen podcast, Snyder has explained why he felt it was important to his entire DC story to have Affleck’s Batman and Leto’s Joker share a scene in Justice League:
“It was important to me that Batman and Joker have a scene together. Let’s be honest, Batman and The Joker are kind of the – that conflict is central to the universe. It was a conflict that I had planned for the Knightmare sequence. And so I was excited to get the opportunity to do it, to have a little taste of that. I thought it was important for fans to see their Batman and this cinematic universe’s Joker coming to some small conflict.”
While the scene is likely to be little more than a cameo from Leto, as we saw in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice with the memorial to Robin, there’s some serious history between this Batman and Joker and so its certainly going to be interesting to see the two come face-to-face.
In ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad, and Darkseid, and their dreadful intentions.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder and features Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, Robin Wright as General Antiope, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, Amber Heard as Mera, Ciaran Hinds as Steppenwolf, Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke, Jared Leto as The Joker and Ray Porter as Darkseid.
