A Lot Of The Joker's Scenes Were Cut Out Of 'Suicide Squad'

DC fans and audiences are now only a mere few hours away from seeing Suicide Squad. Very much a co-star in David Ayer's supervillain picture is the Joker (Jared Leto), a character that isn't too involved in the main storyline but is pivotal to Harley Quinn's (Margot Robbie) journey. Leto is less than 15 minutes of the movie, and according to the actor, the character used to have more screen time, before Ayer and editor John Gilroy reduced his role.

Below, learn more about The Joker deleted scenes.

The Joker is unpleasant in Suicide Squad; he's like nails on a chalkboard, in a good way. Leto does revel in everything that makes this version of the character so awful, and it's a character and performance that may polarize audiences as much as the first look at the character did. In earlier cuts of Suicide Squad, there was even more of the Joker's nastiness.

When Jared Leto was asked by Telestar (via Heroic Hollywood) if any of his scenes got cut from the film, he responded:

Oh, there are a lot of [deleted] scenes, yeah, there are a lot of scenes that didn't make it to the final film. And hopefully they'll see the light of day ... who knows?

Ayer confirmed to Collider the Blu-ray might include some of these deleted scenes in question. The director wouldn't specify what occurred in these discarded scenes. He only responded "maybe" when asked if they featured the Joker and Harley Quinn. Here's what else he had to say:

We have a chunk [of deleted scenes], there's definitely over 10 minutes of material on there. But this cut of the movie is my cut, there's no sort of parallel universe version of the movie, the released movie is my cut. And that's one of the toughest things about writing, shooting, and directing a film, is you end up with these orphans and you fucking love them and you think they'd be amazing scenes and do these amazing things but the film is a dictatorship (laughs), not a democracy, and just because something's cool and charismatic doesn't mean it gets to survive in the final cut. The flow of the movie is the highest master.

That photo above of the Joker biting the pin off a hand grenade may have come from his scrapped battle with the Suicide Squad. Over on Reddit, a few people that attended early test screenings of the film are discussing what we didn't see of the Joker in the final cut. Apparently, during his fight with the Suicide Squad, the Joker slapped Harley Quinn and may have even tried to kill her, which those in attendance claim went over poorly with test audiences. The film is pretty dirty and unpleasant as is — again, in a good way, mostly — so it wouldn't have been surprising if Ayer and Leto's the Joker initially went that far.

Suicide Squad opens in theaters August 5th.