Now that James Gunn and Peter Safran have torn the final remnants of the SnyderVerse to pieces, we can all go about our daily lives safe in the knowledge that Jared Leto’s polarizing take on the Joker that debuted in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad will never be seen again.
To be fair, Zack Snyder did a decent job of attempting to rehabilitate the canonical Clown Prince of Crime’s reputation in the epilogue to HBO Max’s four-hour version of Justice League, but the damage had already been done. It’s going to be a while before a rival emerges to challenge him for the crown of worst big screen Batman archenemy ever, but the director hasn’t been shy in making it clear that wasn’t his intention.
Everyone knows at this stage how Suicide Squad was ripped out of Ayer’s hands in favor of a more studio-mandated cut that led to extensive reshoots and competing edits, with the one polling better with test audiences emerging as the victor. To that end, the End of Watch and Fury filmmaker has confirmed that the majority of Leto’s scenes were added once principal photography had wrapped.
Leto hasn’t held back in lamenting the decision to leave so many of his scenes on the cutting room floor either, but unless the mythical Ayer Cut emerges from the realms of fantasy in a similar fashion to the Snyder Cut of Justice League, then we won’t be able to make a definitive decision on whether or not there really is a vastly superior version of his Joker out there.