DC Rumor Mill Working Overtime

Pardon me if I geek out here for a bit, but it's honestly my only outlet for this stuff. Who is in charge over at DC? Whomever it is is terrible at their job, because the good folks down at the rumor mill are about to head into overtime. Do you want to foot the bill for that? Of course not, no one does. While the rest of the world worries about leaks of another kind, I need to focus on the seemingly non-stop drip drip drop of chaos coming out of DC Films. It's getting to be a bit much at this point.

Three big things we're gonna focus on: Matt Reeves and The Batman, Justice League Dark Pitches Were Allegedly Awful, and Jared Leto and that Joker/Harley Quinn Thing. First up...

Matt Reeves and The Batman

So yesterday we took a look at the latest in the Ben Affleck/Batman saga, and we told you about how director Matt Reeves said that his film was going to be a "standalone" effort outside the DCEU proper. Well, Reeves took to Twitter to clarify what those comments actually meant...

So that was a bunch of overblown nonsense, and we need to stop listening to anything Casey Affleck says while drunk at a Sawx game. 

Justice League Dark Pitches Were Allegedly Awful

Here's an interesting one. A while back it was announced that Swingers and Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman was going to direct a Justice League Dark movie centered around the more mystical DC characters like Swamp Thing, John Constantine, and Zatanna. Then Liman left the project to direct the Gambit movie with Channing Tatum, and then he left that flick too to make an Edge of Tomorrow sequel. DC then figured they'd leave the job open and solicit pitches for the film from other directors and creative types.

Well, as reported by Comic Book Movie, Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted the following yesterday, indicating that the pitch solicitation idea didn't go over too well...

So back to the drawing board we go once more. I know it'll never happen, but they need to get Guillermo Del Toro back to make this movie, otherwise they need to just not make it at all.

Jared Leto and that Joker/Harley Quinn Thing

News also broke yesterday that there was going to be a DCEU film centered around Joker and Harley Quinn, as played by Jared Leto and Margot Robbie. Shortly after we went live with that story, news came down that this film would be replacing the "Girl Power in Gotham" movie that they were originally planning, tentatively titled Gotham City Sirens.  

According to The Tracking Board, David Ayer is officially out of the DCEU as any sort of creative type, and this Joker/Harley Quinn flick from the guys who made Crazy, Stupid Love will officially replace the planned Gotham City Sirens on DC's film calendar.

Never one to keep his mouth shut, Jared Leto was on an Australian radio show yesterday when, as reported by Comic Book Movie, he addressed the rumors surrounding his return as the character. When asked by the hosts if he was done playing The Joker, here's what he had to say...

"No, there's so much hype and bullsh-- about that, I think it's just fun thing to talk about. Even when [Suicide Squad] came out, there was so much misrepresentation about what went down, about the method acting crap. It's just that 90% of it was not even true. It just takes on a life of its own.

[Filming Suicide Squad] was an incredible experience, everyone was amazing. Margot Robbie [is] one of the nicest people and one of the best actresses I've ever worked with. I really loved working with her.

I thought the scenes we did together were some of the most fun I've ever had on a set before. But everything is great in that world and I'm really proud to be a part of it."  

Jared Leto getting on a soap box about the hype surrounding his performance is one of the richest things I've heard in a while. He's actually trying to posit that the hype around his performance distracted from his performance when he was the one who created those myths in the first place. The only reason anyone was even remotely curious about his performance was to see if all that crazy preparation he had done was worth the effort. Spoiler alert, it wasn't. 

So what do we make of all this? Well, I think that DC can count on two things for the foreseeable future. They're going to continue having these problems so long as they share their plans with people who are eager to talk to the press about them. And also that Jared Leto is an irredeemable douchebag who needs to stick to playing music in his band and just leave movies alone. You won the Oscar, dude. You've reached the top of the mountain. Now go away please.