10 Biggest Ways The DCEU Has Changed From Original Plans

When Todd Phillips' R-rated Joker went on to earn over a billion dollars at the box office and see Joaquin Phoenix win the Academy Award for Best Actor, you could almost hear the final nail being hammered into the coffin of Jared Leto's take on the Clown Prince of Crime.

As soon as the first official image of Leto as the Joker was released, the knives were already out for his heavily tattooed take on the iconic villain. Then came the reports of some truly bizarre behavior on the set as he went full-blown Method to get into character, only to find a huge number of his scenes left on the cutting room floor. Suicide Squad getting hacked apart in post-production may have reduced his screentime, but it didn't stop fans and critics roundly savaging his performance either.

Before Suicide Squad's release, a spinoff with the working title Harley Quinn vs. the Joker was officially announced, setting Crazy, Stupid, Love's Glen Ficarra and John Requa to direct. With a solo movie also in the works with Leto acting as executive producer, it seems as though the DCEU was going all-in on the character.

However, when audiences got their first glimpse of Leto's divisive approach to the character, many of them never wanted to see him again. Instead, Warner Bros. moved ahead with Phillips and Phoenix's project, and quickly had Birds of Prey remove the DCEU's iteration of the Joker from the equation entirely.