Warner Bros.
Back in August, Zack Snyder’s teaser trailer for his director’s cut of Justice League contained a curious Joker card that fueled speculation that, somehow, the Clown Prince of Crime would appear in the HBO Max project previously known as the Snyder Cut. The fan-hunch turned out to be correct, and Jared Leto was confirmed to be reprising his (much maligned) Suicide Squad incarnation of the greatest villain of Gotham for Snyder’s reshoots. Those reshoots turned out to be shorter than expected, but one also must remember that Snyder has so much extra footage from his principal photography that the director’s cut runtime will be massive. As far as Joker is concerned, Snyder has revealed that Leto’s Joker will appear differently than he did in Suicide Squad.
How so? Leto “little scene” will be part of the four minutes of new footage, and he will be “road-weary,” according to Snyder. Here’s what the director said during a Beyond The Trailer interview (via Bloody Disgusting):
“I wanted to, of course, honor what had been created with him because I thought it was really cool, but I also felt like… I’m not gonna tell you what happens in the little scene, but there is… some water has gone under the proverbial bridge between last we saw Joker and this sort-of appearance. He’s a road-weary Joker, I guess that’s a way of saying it.
So, what does this mean for Joker — no huffing and puffing over Harley Quinn, but what else? It actually doesn’t sound like we’re gonna see Joker interacting much with anyone, if only a few minutes of reshoot footage has materialized, and Leto wasn’t in any of Snyder’s original principal photography. Perhaps he’ll simply appear in a flashback or a dream sequence, and we totally know that Snyder’s fond of Knightmares, so that route would probably be a safe guess.
Snyder further elaborated while explaining that Leto was perfectly game to take on what Snyder “felt like was an inevitable course that the movie had to take,” which involved Joker. As Snyder put it, Leto “just kind of warmed up to this idea,” and “I am grateful and I am forever in debt to his kindness for doing it.” Yep, it’ll likely be a few minutes of Leto inside of a four-hour miniseries, but one can expect that Leto’s turn will be one of the most talked about moments.
Really though, wouldn’t it be something if we simply saw Leto’s face cackling from within that Joker card from the teaser trailer? Never say never, people.
