Jared Leto's Joker return in Zack Snyder's Justice League breaks a DC live-action movie record. The Snyder Cut's inclusion of Suicide Squad's secondary villain means Leto will become the first actor to ever play the Joker in two separate movies.
The Joker has been played in live-action by five separate actors, most recently Joaquin Phoenix - whose future as the character remains the subject of speculation - but only one actor has ever played the Joker more than once and that happened exclusively in animated releases. Mark Hamill's iconic performance as Gotham's Clown Prince Of Crime featured in no fewer than four features, starting with 1993's Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm and a long list of animated TV shows. Meanwhile, only one live-action Joker has been killed off - Jack Nicholson's Batman 1989 version - but to date, no live-action performer has played the character twice.
Related: Suicide Squad 2: Why Jared Leto's Joker Isn't Returning For Gunn's Sequel
That much will change thanks to Zack Snyder's surprising decision to bring Jared Leto's Joker back, presumably as part of his expanded vision for the Knightmare sequence in Justice League. Just as Ben Affleck's return in The Flash movie makes him a live-action DC movie record-breaker by playing Batman more times than any other actor, Leto's Joker will become a trailblazer in his own respect.
Had Joel Schumacher's plan for Batman Triumphant (sometimes erroneously referred to as Batman Unchained) become reality after Batman & Robin, Leto's Joker would have been beaten to the record by Jack Nicholson. Schumacher had wanted to introduce a plot based on Batman being haunted by the ghosts of his past (thanks to Scarecrow's influence on him) and Nicholson would have returned as the Joker as part of an elaborate hallucination sequence. Sadly - or not sadly for some, given the critical reception of Batman & Robin - Schumacher's plans were derailed and Batman went on ice until Christopher Nolan revived the franchise with Batman Begins.
While specifics are hard to come by, it is often assumed that Nolan himself would have brought back Heath Ledger's Joker to the big screen in The Dark Knight Rises, based at least partly on his positive working relationship with Ledger. In the wake of his tragic death, which put paid to any even tentative plans, Ledger's sister Kate told the documentary I Am Heath Ledger that her brother had planned for more of his Joker. Sadly, that particular chapter of the alternative history of Batman will have to remain in the realms of fantasy.
Leto has big shoes to fill, just as he did when he was cast for Suicide Squad, and Justice League offers Leto's Joker a huge opportunity for redemption in the wake of that film's failures. The return also holds some promise of being more in line with David Ayer's original vision for the Joker after studio interference cut out the majority of his role from Suicide Squad's theatrical version. It may not offer Leto quite the tenure in the DCEU that original plans may have, but those scrapped subsequent movie appearances are how just part of the scrapped original DCEU plans. Should Zack Snyder's Justice League do well enough, perhaps there'd be more, but the chances of Leto returning a third time, for now, look very slim.
