Why DC Just Cancelled Jared Leto's Joker Movies

3. A Joker/Harley Film Wouldn't Have Been Appropriate

Suicide Squad Movie Harley Joker Robbie Leto
Warner Bros. Pictures

To longtime readers of DC Comics (and even to longtime viewers of DC Animation), there is only one thing to describe the relationship between Harley Quinn and the Joker as being: abusive.

Although Quinn's origins have changed over the years, one element tends to remain consistent; she's a brilliant psychiatrist who's assigned to Arkham to profile the Joker. Over the course of their sessions, the Clown Prince manipulates Quinn into falling in love with him, breaking him out of Arkham, and into becoming his new accomplice. At no point does he illustrate a hint of 'love' for Quinn, using her merely as a means to an end and repeatedly mistreating her in most depictions, to the point of almost killing her in Dini and Timm's seminal Batman story, Mad Love.

Except, in Suicide Squad, the relationship was flipped completely on its head. Instead of there being an abusive dynamic, David Ayer elected to depict the pair almost like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, resulting in an awkward fandom that began to idolise their relationship with poorly intended makeup tutorials and fan-fiction.

When it was first announced, The Hollywood Reporter referred to the project as "When Harry Met Sally on Benzedrine", which couldn't possibly be further from how it's seen in the comics. Factor the precedent established in Suicide Squad, and it was clear to see even back then that a Joker/Harley rom-com was a bad idea.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.