with never-before-seen material and loads of new footage, the 4-hour epic will include a a new, much more sinister iteration of Jared Leto’s Joker.
The saga of the long-awaited ‘Snyder Cut’ of arguably the most polarizing superhero epic ever made will finally come to conclusion one way or another on March 18th.
The 4-hour director’s cut of Justice League will stream exclusively on HBO Max and it has without a doubt become one of the most anticipated films in recent memory. In a recent feature via vanity Fair, the director not only revealed two new images of Jared Leto’s version of The Joke that have been added to the film, but further expanded on the scope of the project – arguably part of what makes the film so intriguing.
Detailing that he began working on the project a decade ago, before infamously walking away prior to it’s completion due to a fallout with the studio in 2017, Snyder’s vision for the narrative was expansive and nuanced. He knew he would introduce The Joker opposite of Batman, eventually, but prior to relinquishing the project, the first iteration of his Justice League didn’t include The Joker at all.
When given the opportunity to revisit the project and complete his vision with no interference, as initially intended, Snyder restored loads of footage that never made the Joss Whedon version of the film that saw a commercial and critical shortfall in 2017. In addition to that restored footage, Snyder got the green light and the budget to re-shoot additional footage, expanding on his creation of the DC superhero landscape. Among those additions was the inclusion of Jared Leto as The Joker.
The Joker that appears in the first images from the Snyder Cut however is a far departure from the eccentric, animated villain that Leto became scorned for in the 2016 iteration of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Snyder reveals that this version of the Joker is intended to translate as much more methodical, treacherous.
“The cool thing about the scene is that it’s Joker talking directly to Batman about Batman,” Snyder said via Vanity Fair. “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.”
Snyder, showing that his thinking is always a few steps ahead, had a narrative set with this onscreen exchange serving as a pivotal moment. “The scene explains why Bruce had the Joker card taped to his gun that you see in Batman v Superman”.
The director continued, “I’d always wanted to explore the death of Robin. 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.”
Given the especially dark direction Snyder is taking the DC Universe, its no wonder these images of Jared Leto of The Joker translate as much more sinister, calloused, and frankly… terrifying.
The arrival of the ‘Snyder Cut’ of Justice League arrives on HBO Max starting March 18th.
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