The Suicide Squad marketing campaign focused on The Joker as a main character. As it turned out, there was no doubt that Jared Leto's Clown Prince of Crime was nothing but dead weight. After the film was released, the actor said that he’d shot so much material that The Joker could easily have been Suicide Squad’s main antagonist.
We wouldn't put it as bluntly as he did, but his discontent was more than obvious, even for those who weren’t aware of the extent of his promotion of Suicide Squad. Naturally, rumors suggesting that he might be out of the DC Extended Universe started to spread almost as soon as the movie hit the theaters.
Following today's news about the studio’s plans to make a Joker origin story with a different actor, it would be easy to believe that Jared Leto is indeed done with the shared universe. But that’s not the case. Deadline, which also broke the Warner Bros. Elseworlds news, reported that the actor is expected to return for at least two more movies.
Leto has been given a chance to show everyone what he can do in Suicide Squad 2 and its spin-off Gotham City Sirens, which was announced after Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn became such a fan-favorite. No directors or release dates have been announced for the projects.
We can speculate that at least one of the movies will be released in 2020, the same year of release for two unspecified DC movies.
To say that Jared Leto's Joker was a divisive factor in Suicide Squad would be an understatement, and the news that most of his scenes were allegedly cut didn't help much. Maybe one or the other of these new movies will provide Jared Leto with the opportunity to demonstrate why his gangsta Joker is a viable character.
