2 jokers 2 films

Jared Leto Was Reportedly Hell-Bent on Preventing Joker From Being Made

Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

He’s a joker, he’s a smoker, he’s a midnight toker, and he’s reportedly also a petty li’l thespian who thinks he owns the trademark for the clown prince of crime. Per some juicy intel over at THR, Jared Leto, who portrayed the Joker in 2016’s much-reviled Suicide Squad, was so pissed off that Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s standalone Joker origin drama was green-lit at Warner Bros. that he tried to get the studio to “kill” the film. Leto’s “alienated and upset” behavior, THR explains, stemmed from the actor wanting his own standalone Joker film, which was being teased as a possibility as recently as last year. (Now, the likelihood of his own Harlequin of Hate movie is slim to none, and he feels he was unfairly “strung along.”) Leto’s behind-the-scenes behavior while filming Suicide Squad — which included sending castmates disgusting “gifts” such as dead rats, anal beads, and semen-soaked magazines — also apparently didn’t win him any favors with the studio. But it was on-brand!

Jared Leto Was Hell-Bent on Preventing Joker From Being Made