A treat for all DC fans: Jared Leto's Joker to have a stand-alone movie
Warner Bros. is in the process of expanding on Jared Leto’s Joker which first debuted in Suicide Squad in 2016.
According to reports, Leto would star as well as executively produce the yet to be titled standalone film, which likely would pave the way for other spinoffs from the Suicide Squad universe.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie production is in its early stages and is currently out to writers for the take.
Suicide Squad was directed by David Ayer and starred a bunch of DC villains as antiheroes. The movie collected $746 million worldwide. It starred Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis and Jared Leto among others.
The studio is also working on developing a so-called Joker origin movie which would be directed by Todd Phillips and might star Joaquin Phoenix. The studio particularly emphasized that Todd Phillip’s Joker does not mean the end of Leto’s Joker. Rather, Phillips’ film would come under a new origin banner that would be different from the present DC cinematic universe.
Apart from this DC project, Warners is in the process of developing various other projects as well. The Warner Bros. has also announced that Harley Quinn -- played by Margot Robbie -- would be getting a movie of her own with “Bird of Prey” feature. Another project would have Jared Leto’s Joker and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn together.
Warner Bros. also plans on mining its DC properties for a plethora of storylines with a variety of different actors that doesn’t necessarily have to stick to the primary Justice League continuity. That is where Todd Phillip’s Joker origin story comes in.
However, this strategy by DC is more or less mimicking the strategy adopted by MARVEL studios to build their cinematic universe, by introducing superheroes individually and then building a crossover story.
But the strategy hasn't worked that well for DC, with movies like Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice failing at the box office; and when Justice League arrived – with Joss Whedon taking over as director after Zack Snyder was sacked – it was considered a disappointment.
Even the success of Gal Gadot-starrer Wonder Woman couldn’t really make up for the damage caused by Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. Though Wonder Woman grossed around $650 million, it still lagged significantly behind MARVEL which grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide with Whedon’s 2012 movie The Avengers alone.
According to the Verge, when the audience was asked about multiple movies on the Joker at the same time, it seemed like a recipe for disaster. After the mixed box-office response of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it isn’t clear whether the audience is interested in watching multiple takes on the same roles or are they interested in milking a given franchise for as many movies as possible.