Jared Leto's Joker was never in contention to return in The Suicide Squad - here's why that's no bad thing. Five years after Task Force X put their lives on the line against Enchantress, the gang (some of them, at least) are back for The Suicide Squad. With James Gunn occupying the director's chair on this occasion, The Suicide Squad is a very different beast compared to the 2016 original, and won't even address whether the two films exist within a shared DC movie universe. Despite this, a few familiar felons are gluttons for punishment, including Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag, and Viola Davis' Amanda Waller.
The Joker, however, has been removed from the pack. With Heath Ledger's iconic portrayal still relatively fresh in the mind, the DCEU cast Jared Leto as cinema's next Clown Prince of Crime. Initially, hiring the eccentric, Oscar-winning 30 Seconds To Mars frontman seemed like inspired casting. Then they slapped a tattoo on his head, a grill upon his teeth, and golds around his wrists. The character was a major disappointment in a sub-par movie. Suicide Squad director, David Ayer, blames studio interference for decimating Leto's scenes, and while Zack Snyder's Justice League offered the DCEU Joker some measure of redemption, there's no sign of a long-term future for Leto's Joker.
Some might've expected the DCEU's pale prankster would return in The Suicide Squad, but Gunn has shut this notion down, confirming he never even considered involving Leto because a Joker appearance wouldn't make sense. And it's easy to see where the director is coming from. To begin with, Joker felt horribly crowbar-ed into 2016's Suicide Squad, adding little to the plot, distracting from the main group, and leaving viewers bitterly disappointed, either because they liked his mumble-rap aesthetic and wanted something more substantial, or because they hated it and wished Leto's Joker had stayed home cataloging his gun collection.
After a flop debut, many may have been tempted to try again with the sequel, but Joker's presence in The Suicide Squad would make even less sense than in 2016. For a start, the Harley Quinn connection has officially been severed. Joker's route into Suicide Squad was an ongoing dysfunctional romance with Ms. Quinzel, but thanks to Birds of Prey, Harley has been emancipated (it's even in the title!) from her abusive ex. The one tenuous link Joker had to Task Force X no longer exists, and any sort of grand comeback in The Suicide Squad would only hurt Harley Quinn's development as an independent character.
The Suicide Squad might've circumvented this problem by including Joker in the Squad itself, rather than burden him with another peripheral part as the first movie infamously did. Again, this makes very little sense. By its very nature, Task Force X is comprised of near-worthless supervillains (Harley Quinn notwithstanding) on their final chance. They're hopeless, dispensable rejects taking up valuable prison space, and James Gunn leans into this quality far more than David Ayer, casting a variety of D-list DC names - Weasel, Polka-Dot Man, etc. Just try and imagine Jared Leto's high-rolling Joker sat on a military transport between a soda-chugging Nathan Fillion and a shark with legs... Joker is not only incredibly famous in DC's fictional universe - he's also one of the most feared and effective criminals currently in business. Assuming the authorities caught him, even Waller wouldn't risk putting the Clown Prince on her team, since his status and reputation go against everything she designed the Suicide Squad to be.
Omitting Jared Leto's Joker from The Suicide Squad is a win-win situation for all involved. The film can focus on its main crew without being forced to accommodate a madman in clown makeup, and Leto gets to leave his DC tenure on a positive note after his brief Snyder Cut cameo.
