Why Joker Was Not In The Suicide Squad
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad served as a reboot for 2016’s Suicide Squad by David Ayer. And even though Ayer’s version featured the Clown Prince of Gotham, Gunn deliberately left him out of his movie. Despite the absence of a fan-favorite character, the movie did really well among the audience and the critics, as well. Recently, he explained why Joker was not in The Suicide Squad. Keep up with us for the director’s explanation.
David Ayer’s Suicide Squad was mostly a well-received movie by the fans. They enjoyed the cinematic iteration of characters like Harley Quinn, Deadshot and El Diablo, and not to forget, Amanda Waller. However, Jared Leto’s version of The Joker was a deal-breaker for many fans. Even though he had little screen-time, it was enough to aggravate the Joker fans. And though Leto did his best, fans just didn’t seem to like him as Joker. The primary reason was that the bar was set too high by the previous actor who played the character on screen, Heath Ledger. The DCEU developers were even thinking of a Joker-centric movie with Jared Leto but after the response from the fans, they dropped the idea.
WHY DID DC STUDIOS GO TO GUNN AND WHY DID HE NOT WANT JOKER
With the inability to land the character among the viewers, the DC studios turned to James Gunn for a potential reboot. Surprisingly, he didn’t even want to include Joker in his movie. According to him:
There’s all sorts of other characters I’m interested in doing. Joker isn’t really one of them. He’s been done well so many times by so many people. I am much more interested in taking characters who haven’t fully had their shot, or people who I connect with.
This characteristic of the director has been constant in his other comic book projects. He likes to challenge himself by taking the lesser-known characters from the corners of the comic book world and landing them well among his audience, making them fan-favorites. And this explanation of his lines up perfectly with this trait of James Gunn.
This explanation might imply that Gunn will not be including Joker in his upcoming DCEU projects. However, this doesn’t mean we should just lose hope for Joker’s appearance in Gunn’s future projects. His upcoming project, Peacemaker, is mainly based on John Cena’s Suicide Squad character which has almost no connection with the Joker so we might not be seeing him in it. However, if the Studios decides to give him the green flag for The Suicide Squad sequels, The Joker might hijack the franchise. Fingers crossed!
Peacemaker will be streaming on HBO Max from January 13, 2022. Are you excited about it? Let us know in the comments.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter for more content.
Also Watch: