HBO Max(LOS ANGELES) — (SPOILER ALERT) Batman fans rejoice: the Joker’s face tattoos are gone in the Justice League: The Snyder Cut.
Ahead of the movie’s March 18 debut in theaters and HBO Max, director Zack Snyder gave Vanity Fair a peek of his vision for Jared Leto’s Joker in the film.
Leto’s Joker appeared in David Ayers’ Suicide Squad, sporting a shiny grills in his mouth and tattoos across his forehead, a look Honest Trailers mocked as “mananorexic Juggalo.” But for Snyder, the look is much more subtle — and scary.
The black-and-white photos show Leto in a filthy lab coat, his face white but his mouth and eyes smeared with makeup.
While the look is quite different than in Suicide Squad, there’s no shade from Snyder, who praised Leto and Ayers in a tweet picturing the Clown Prince of Crime out of focus, holding up the Joker card to camera. “Amazing character you created,” Snyder posted to the pair. “Honored to have our worlds collide.”
Snyder, who stepped down from Justice League because of a family tragedy, after Warner Bros. tapped Joss Whedon to re-cut the film and re-shoot some scenes, tells the magazine his only regret was not having Joker in his version. When he got the opportunity for reshoots, he jumped at the chance to use Leto in a scene that takes place as part of Bruce Wayne’s apocalyptic vision brought upon by the world-conquering villain, Darkseid.
“It’s Joker analyzing Batman about who he is and what he is,” Snyder says. “[T]he Jared Leto Joker and the Ben Affleck Batman, they never really got together. [That] seemed uncool to me…”
As for where the Joker tats went, Snyder says, “I don’t know if he’s wearing makeup…It’s hard to say exactly.”
By Stephen Iervolino
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