It’s been 35 years since Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner debuted and forever changed the landscape of science-fiction cinema. And 35 years later, the film is making an improbable comeback in theaters this fall in Blade Runner 2049, produced by Scott and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Harrison Ford returns to his role as Blade Runner Rick Deckard, with Ryan Gosling joining him as Officer K and Jared Leto playing himself (we think).
After a series of delays and false starts (or near-misses, however you want to define it), Disney officially nixed Tron 3…but they didn’t take the Tron franchise off the table entirely. Just this week, Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski divulged some details from the third Tron film (titled Ascension) and revealed that the sequel wasn’t totally dead, but in “cryogenic freeze.” According to a new report, Disney is gearing up to return to the world of Tron, with Jared Leto eyeing a lead role in the new project — but it’s not exactly a sequel.
Listen, impressionable young men and women of the world, because this is important: you should not watch Suicide Squad and think that the Joker and Harley Quinn represent any kind of reasonable #RelationshipGoal. This is an abusive and possessive relationship, start to finish, and while there may be a more consensual love story scattered among the footage on the cutting room floor, we won’t know until we see it. This is a pretty important disclaimer to throw out there before we talk about this footage
By all accounts, a lot of stuff got cut out of Suicide Squad. If you believe the recent press reports, there were two totally different versions of the film competing for release: A darker take from director David Ayer, and a jokier movie edited in consultation with the company that made the film’s popular, upbeat trailers.
Jared Leto is the second name on the poster for Suicide Squad. The only actor to get billed above him is Will Smith. Leto is listed ahead of actors like Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis, who, unlike the Joker, are all actual members of the Suicide Squad. Despite Leto’s billing, though, and despite the large amount of publicity surrounding his unusual version of the character (not to mention his unusual preparations to play the role, which included sending disgusting “gifts” to his colleagues), Leto has very little screentime in the final film. He’s featured mostly in flashbacks about Robbie’s Harley Quinn and her time before she was captured by Batman. When he finally appears in the contemporary story, he shows up to “rescue” Harley, fails, and crashes in a helicopter. Then he doesn’t show up again until the very last scenes of the movie, when he tries to break her out of prison.
If you liked the scene in Batman v Superman where Bruce Wayne watched YouTube videos about the future members of the Justice League, you'll love Suicide Squad. Instead of just one scene of plot-stopping fan service, Suicide Squad delivers an entire first act of soul-deadening exposition. The movie spends nearly 30 story-free minutes with a Machiavellian bureaucrat while she sits in a restaurant discussing a top secret personnel file. Here is Deadshot, the world’s greatest assassin; this is Harley Quinn, the Joker’s psychotic girlfriend. Oh, and have you heard about Captain Boomerang? And on and on and on.
When Christopher Nolan first revealed Heath Ledger’s Joker for The Dark Knight, fans were pretty annoyed with the drastic departure from the classic depictions of the character. Reactions to Jared Leto’s version of the character from Suicide Squad were twice as intense thanks to that gold grill and his collection of questionable tattoos, which mostly left fans feeling baffled. If you’re curious about what on earth inspired David Ayer’s new Joker, the director has offered some insight into his influences — most of which you can find on Instagram.
"I did a lot of things to create a dynamic, to create an element of surprise, of spontaneity and to really break down any kind of walls that may be there."