Zack Snyder Wanted to Make a Batman vs. Joker Movie After Justice League

What’s more controversial? Zack Snyder’s vision of the DC Universe as expressed in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and which he will finally complete with the release of “The Snyder Cut” of Justice League in March…or Jared Leto’s tattooed-and-grilled gangster interpretation of the Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad? Don’t answer that, we’re not looking to start that fight yet again.

And yet, the debate rages on. And it’s a debate that will be once again opened up when Zack Snyder’s Justice League arrives on HBO Max in March. Snyder has filmed brand new footage with Leto as the Joker for the film. Not only that, his Joker has a new, albeit more traditional look than he boasted in Suicide Squad. Snyder explained his reasoning for including the character, along with a reveal of Leto’s new, yet more traditional, look as the Joker.

“I will say that it was always my intention to bring Joker into that world,” Snyder told Vanity Fair. The director revealed that while Joker didn’t officially appear in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, he had hoped to do another DC movie after Justice League that would finally let Leto’s Joker square off against Ben Affleck’s Batman. It was clear from Batman v Superman that the pair had a brutal history, with the revelation that Joker had killed Robin, and the director “wanted to explore” that story and its repercussions in a future DC movie featuring Batman and Joker.

“If there ever was going to be a next movie, which, of course, there probably won’t be, I wanted to do a thing where in flashbacks we learn how Robin died, how Joker killed him and burned down Wayne Manor, and that whole thing that happened between he and Bruce,” Snyder said, further teasing that the story would reveal “how they became like this … how [Joker] hurt [Batman] in a way that no one has, really. Other than losing his parents, it was probably the most significant personal injury to his life.”

While Joker’s appearance in Zack Snyder’s Justice League will explain some of their backstory, but it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get to see a proper showdown between Affleck’s Batman and Leto’s Joker.

“The cool thing about the scene is that it’s Joker talking directly to Batman about Batman,” Snyder told Vanity Fair. “It’s Joker analyzing Batman about who he is and what he is. That’s the thing I also felt like fans deserved from the DC Universe. That is to say, the Jared Leto Joker and the Ben Affleck Batman, they never really got together. It seemed uncool to me that we would make it all the way through this incarnation of Batman and Joker without seeing them come together.”

We’ll get to see the new scene and Joker’s new look when Zack Snyder’s Justice League hits HBO Max on March 18.