Suicide Squad director David Ayer has been talking a lot about The Joker on social media over the past few days, and the filmmaker has now weighed in on what happened to Jared Leto's performance in the movie.
When Warner Bros. panicked after the response to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, they decided that the tone of Task Force X's big screen debut needed to be lightened. As a result, much of Harley Quinn's abusive relationship with The Joker was cut, and we know that he was supposed to return during the final battle to try to take out his lover's new teammates.
Responding to a fan on social media, Ayer expressed his surprise at people still talking about the movie's version of the Clown Prince of Crime so many years after Suicide Squad was released and noted that he actually took inspiration from how The Joker was being portrayed in the comics at the time (thinking about it, he did have a fair bit in common with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's take).
He also expressed his heartbreak over the fact that much of Leto's "magnificent work" now "remains unseen" after it was cut out of the movie, presumably at the behest of Warner Bros.
Check out Ayer's Tweet below: