Zack Snyder has revealed a new look at Jared Leto’s appearance as the Joker in his upcoming four-hour cut of “Justice League”…
Zack Snyder has plenty of surprises in store when his four-hour cut of “Justice League” debuts on HBO Max on March 18 including the addition of Jared Leto as The Joker.
Of course, Snyder has promised that his cut of “Justice League” will be vastly different from that landed in theaters back in 2017. That version largely crafted by Joss Whedon was altered from Snyder’s original vision after he was forced off the film due to a family tragedy.
Now after an outcry on social media including several actors from the “Justice League” movie, Snyder was commissioned to finish his version of the film, which includes a huge amount of never before seen footage including Leto’s return as the Clown Prince of Crime.
Leto previously appeared as The Joker in 2016’s “Suicide Squad” but it turns out Snyder just had to bring him back for his version of “Justice League” because it felt wrong that he never got the chance to stand in the same room as Ben Affleck’s Batman.
“The Joker is really the only thing that I thought of in retrospect,” Snyder told Vanity Fair. “But I will say that it was always my intention to bring Joker into that world.
“The cool thing about the scene is that it’s Joker talking directly to Batman about Batman. It’s Joker analyzing Batman about who he is and what he is. That’s the thing I also felt like fans deserved from the DC Universe. That is to say, the Jared Leto Joker and the Ben Affleck Batman, they never really got together. It seemed uncool to me that we would make it all the way through this incarnation of Batman and Joker without seeing them come together.”
According to Snyder, his version of the Joker as played by Leto is still much different than the one that showed up on “Suicide Squad” and the first look at the images of him from “Justice League” definitely tell that story. The crazy tattoos that decorated Leto’s face in that film are gone not to mention the differences with his hair and overall demeanor when appearing opposite Batman.
When Snyder was first crafting his own take on the DC Universe, he had envisioned a world where the Joker had already taken so much from Batman as seen in a brief image that appeared in his film “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
As Bruce Wayne makes his way through the bat-cave, he stops at a costume marred by graffiti that says “Ha ha joke’s on you Batman” and the intention was that the Joker had killed Robin prior to the events in that movie. Snyder fully intended on exploring that dynamic between Batman and the Joker if he ever got to travel further down the road with his story for those characters.
“I’d always wanted to explore the death of Robin,” Snyder said. “And if there ever was going to be a next movie, which, of course, there probably won’t be, I wanted to do a thing where in flashbacks we learn how Robin died, how Joker killed him and burned down Wayne Manor, and that whole thing that happened between he and Bruce.”
It seems unlikely Snyder will ever get the chance to explore that story, especially considering Affleck has largely left the role of Batman behind him outside of a planned appearance in the upcoming “The Flash” movie that will introduce the DC multi-verse.
Still, Snyder was thankful to at least get the chance to feature Leto as the Joker one more time in his version of “Justice League.”
The “Snyder Cut” of “Justice League” will arrive on HBO Max on March 18.
