Zack Snyder shares first look of Jared Leto's Justice League Joker, teases first Batman vs Joker scene since Dark Knight

Director Zack Snyder has shared the first-look images of actor Jared Leto's Joker, who has been redrawn for the upcoming director's cut of Justice League. The Academy Award winner previously played the iconic Batman villain in Suicide Squad, with much of his performance being left on the cutting room floor.

Snyder, in an interview, teased a meeting between Leto's Joker and Ben Affleck's Batman in his four-hour Justice League, due for release on the HBO Max streaming service in March.

The filmmaker, who had to leave the project before it was completed because of a family tragedy, and disagreements with the studio, said that when he was brought back to complete his vision, the only element he wanted to add was the Joker. A theatrical version of Justice League was released in 2017, with director Joss Whedon filling in for Snyder.

Also read: Jared Leto tried to ‘throttle’ Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker before it was made, ‘complained bitterly’ to his team

“The cool thing about the scene is that it’s Joker talking directly to Batman about Batman,” Snyder told 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.”

The filmmaker, however, had no explanation for why the Joker looks drastically different in the new pictures, as compared to his tattooed appearance in Suicide Squad. He said, “I would say that there’s been some water under the bridge. Who knows what’s happened. I don’t know if he’s wearing makeup, I don’t know what’s happening. It’s hard to say exactly.”

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