Suicide Squad Director David Ayer Reacts to Jared Leto’s Joker Return for Justice League

While David Ayer continues to talk about his original vision for Suicide Squad, the director will get to see his influence in the upcoming Snyder Cut of Justice League for HBO Max now that Jared Leto is reprising his role as the Joker for the reshoots. Reports recently confirmed Leto would indeed be back, prompting Ayer to address the return on social media. While Ayer will not be returning for the upcoming sequel-meets-reboot The Suicide Squad, he’s still supportive of what the future holds for DC Comics movies.

In response to the announcement, Ayer took to Twitter with a simple emoji that perfectly captures his sentiments about Leto’s Joker return.

Ayer’s support of Leto’s vision seemed all for naught when Joaquin Phoenix was cast in the Joker standalone movie, and then when it was revealed Joker wouldn’t appear in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. But now that Leto is back, it sounds like a possibility that Ayer’s version of Suicide Squad could actually come together.

The filmmaker confirmed that he shot a lot of scenes that hit the cutting room floor, including a climactic showdown between Joker and Task Force X where the Clown Prince of Crime has the detonator for the bombs implanted in their heads.

“Shot and edited,” Ayer wrote on Twitter. “Of course you were not permitted to see it my friend.”

There was a chance for Leto to return in Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn followup project Birds of Prey, but the actress admitted they made a conscious decision to remove Leto’s Joker from the equation altogether.

“It was either going to be a complete Harley and Joker story or Joker has got to be out of the picture,” Robbie told ComicBook.com. “I really wanted to see Harley in a girl gang and I felt there was a huge gap in the market for a girl gang ensemble action film. I felt like no one was doing that and I couldn’t understand why, especially a comic book movie.”

She added, “From the very beginning it was a conscious choice of they have to be broken up at this stage. I have a whole backstory in my head [of] what’s happened between what you saw at the end of Suicide Squad and what you see at the beginning of Birds of Prey.”

Leto will appear in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which is set to hit HBO Max in 2021.