For the most part, the characters who are appearing in Zack Snyder’s Justice League all either showed up in the theatrical cut or were supposed to appear in it before the movie was drastically changed during the Joss Whedon-helmed reshoots. However, one completely new addition to the Snyder Cut is Jared Leto’s Joker, who made his DC Extended Universe in 2016’s Suicide Squad, but was never a part of the original Justice League story Snyder shot during principal photography.
That said, because Zack Snyder was allowed to shoot some additional scenes for his Justice League vision heading to HBO Max, he decided to throw Jared Leto’s incarnation of Gotham City’s Clown Prince of Crime into the mix. So what can we expect from Joker in the Snyder Cut? Well, evidently he’ll be quite different from the way he was depicted in Suicide Squad. Snyder explained:
I wanted to, of course, honor what had been created with him because I thought it was really cool, but also… some water has gone under the proverbial bridge between when last saw we saw Joker in this sort of appearance. He’s a road-weary Joker, I guess that’s a way of saying it.
Zack Snyder dropped this tidbit of information while speaking with Grace Randolph on Beyond The Trailer, and it was also clarified that Joker’s actual look will be different compared to how he was shown in Suicide Squad. However, Snyder is keeping mum on how Joker is involved in his version of Justice League, only saying the character is part of a “vignette” that has a “segment of the band together.” So it sounds like Leto’s Joker will be interacting with some already-established Justice League characters, rather than just show up in a bubble.
When we left off with The Joker at the end of Suicide Squad, he’d broke Harley Quinn out of Belle Reve following Task Force X successfully defeating Enchantress. However, the couple broke up soon afterwards, with Birds of Prey chronicling Harley Quinn charting a new path for her life. But with Zack Snyder’s Justice League taking place in an Elseworlds-like continuity away from what is now the main DCEU timeline, it’s hard to say where we’ll find Joker when we see him in this particular story.
One possibility is we could see Joker in Arkham Asylum, as it’s expected we’ll see Zack Snyder’s original version of Justice League’s post-credits scene, which, in the theatrical version, showed Lex Luthor having broken out of the mental institution and meeting with Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke. However, there’s also been speculation that the Snyder Cut will include a scene set in the Knightmare future Bruce Wayne first glimpsed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The first trailer for Zack Snyder’s Justice League showed a Joker card floating around that dystopian reality, so maybe there’s some merit to that guess.
Whatever’s in store for Joker in the Snyder Cut, at the very least, it’ll give Jared Leto a little bit of extra time to leave a distinct impression as the character. While Leto shot a lot of Joker scenes for Suicide Squad, most of them were omitted for the theatrical cut. With Zack Snyder’s Justice League airing as a four-part miniseries on HBO Max, there have been calls on social media for the streaming service to also provide David Ayer’s original version of Suicide Squad, thus allowing people to see even more of the work Leto poured into his Joker performance.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is expected to drop on HBO Max in early to mid-2021. As for what the DCEU has headed to theaters in the near future, you can find that information in our DC movies guide. Don’t forget that Jared Leto is also starring in Morbius, the second installment of the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, which comes out on March 19, 2021.
