Joker: Jared Leto ‘likely over’ playing character, amid claims he tried to halt production on Joaquin Phoenix film

Actor was previously described as feeling ‘alienated and upset’ by Phoenix film

Jared Leto was reportedly so unhappy with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie that he attempted to have it halted while it was in development.

It was previously claimed that the Oscar winner, who portrayed the character in 2016’s Suicide Squad, felt “alienated and upset” by the film, and believed it undermined his previous work and aspirations for his own Joker spin-off movie.

Sources have now told the Hollywood Reporter that Leto complained to his management upon discovering that Joker was in development with Phoenix and director Todd Phillips.

He also allegedly requested that his music manager Irving Azoff, one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, ask Warner Bros to halt production on the film.

Leto and Azoff have since parted ways, the site claimed. Leto has also departed his management at the Creative Artists Agency.

The paper additionally claimed that Leto’s days as The Joker are “likely over”, with the character not appearing in the forthcoming Birds of Prey, which is led by his on-screen love interest Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie), nor James Gunn’s forthcoming The Suicide Squad – which is being considered a soft reboot of David Ayer’s 2016 film.

Several actors from the earlier film, including Robbie, Viola Davis and Jai Courtney, are reprising their roles for Gunn.

In 2017, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa were hired to write and direct a spin-off movie revolving around Joker and Harley Quinn, to be led by Leto and Robbie. A script was produced, one that featured the pair kidnapping the US television personality Dr Phil McGraw, but the project has not moved forward since 2018.

A separate spin-off movie for Leto’s Joker was announced in June 2018, but has been without a director or screenwriter ever since.