DC fans had their minds blown when it was announced back in the summer that an origins movie for the Joker was in the works. Sitting outside the DC Extended Universe, the film is set to feature a new actor as the Clown Prince of Crime in place of Jared Leto. Furthermore, The Hangover’s Todd Phillips is directing with legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese on hand to produce.
Since that initial announcement, however, all’s gone quiet on the project with few to no details having been released. As such, fans are left wondering where they’ll see Leto’s Mr. J show up next. Right now, it’s looking like it may be in Suicide Squad 2, after Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant) pipped Mel Gibson and Jaume Collet-Serra at the post to sign on as director, while we understand Warner has also drawn up plans for Gotham City Sirens and Joker and Harley Quinn, an embryonic spinoff centering on the fiery, “messed up” love affair brewing between the two DC icons. But where else could the beloved villain show his face?
Well, if Ezra Miller has his way, the Joker might just be involved in Justice League 2. Speaking to The Toronto Sun this past week, the actor, who plays the Flash in the DCEU, was asked which villains he’d like to see in a potential sequel. While he didn’t name the Clown Prince specifically, he did say he’d like to have the Injustice League involved, and as comic book fans will know, that supervillain team includes Mr. J.
“The Injustice League. I think I can speak for everyone in the League when I say that we’re extremely excited by the prospect of continuing this journey. We don’t really know for sure, and we’re usually the last people to find out, but … each of the heroes in this movie has specific nemeses, and I think seeing some incarnation of the Injustice League (which includes Lex Luthor, Joker, Deathstroke and more) would be something that DC fans would be pretty stoked about.”
So, could this actually happen? We’d say it’s very probable. After all, it’s basically confirmed that one of two post-credits scenes in Justice League involves Deathstroke busting Lex out of the prison. As such, the foundation for the formation of the Injustice League is already there. It wouldn’t be too difficult to throw Joker into the sequel then and have the three characters come together to form the supervillain team.
It’s also important to consider that other members of the group include Black Manta (who we know will be in Aquaman), Harley Quinn (who’s already been introduced in the DCEU) and Catwoman (who’s set to appear in Gotham City Sirens), among many more. So, the seeds are definitely there. It’s just a question of whether or not DC is ready to have them grow yet.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. For the time being, we can all look forward to the launch of Justice League on November 17th, when it will no doubt achieve box office glory, particularly now that analysts have predicted a strong opening weekend in the region of $120 million. And that’s before word of mouth was factored into the equation.