The arrival of Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League has fans of the director excited, and the blockbuster’s glimpse of Joker shows that Jared Leto’s divisive iteration of the character might live up to his original promise in this new release. Released in 2017, the Justice League edit that cinema viewers worldwide received four years ago was dismissed by many critics and fans alike as a muddled, conflicted superhero team-up.
Scandal-ridden Buffy creator Joss Whedon replaced original director Zach Snyder late in the troubled production of Justice League when Snyder’s personal life was hit with tragedy. In the years since fans of Snyder have mounted a massive online campaign to get Snyder’s darker (and potentially more cohesive) cut of Justice League completed and released. It’s been a mammoth effort by fans of the helmer’s vision for DC’s heroes, and one that has paid off with HBO soon to release the Snyder Cut of Justice League this year.
One of the most contentious additions to the DC Extended Universe during Snyder’s tenure as a director and producer on various projects therein was Jared Leto’s casting as the Joker. His heavily edited-down appearance in 2016’s Suicide Squad received mixed reviews, with some critics calling it an over-the-top delight but many feeling Leto tried too hard and failed to reinvent the iconic villain. However, Justice League’s reinstated Knightmare future sequence recently offered fans an image of Leto’s Joker that harkens back to the darker, less comedic iteration of the character that the American Psycho actor’s casting originally promised.
In the recently-seen images, Justice League’s Joker is dressed in a hospital gown, with a ton of assorted law enforcement badges hanging from him, covered in blood. A weird, disquieting sight, it’s a vision of Leto’s Joker that fits more his identity as a wild-eyed maniac rather than Suicide Squad's much-derided Miami gangster vibe. Of course, the fact that Leto’s role in Suicide Squad was further ruined by the movie’s editors cutting much of his screentime from the finished film compounded the sense that viewers missed out on Leto’s Joker, something the Justice League’s Snyder Cut looks set to fix.
Much like the redesigned Steppenwolf, Snyder’s version of the Joker makes it clear in these few glimpses alone that the director will not be avoiding dark, uncompromising villains. While both Leto’s Joker and Steppenwolf’s redesign prompted some spoofing online, much like Snyder’s earlier Watchmen and Batman v Superman, it’s obvious by now that the director prefers to lean into self-serious dark imagery over the winking meta-humor of the MCU. It’s unclear how much Leto’s Joker will appear in Justice League, but even if the character only has a small role, the upcoming release still promises to deliver more of the unsettling mania that was hoped for from Leto’s Joker than the tonally inconsistent Suicide Squad.
