It’s been two years since Jared Leto and Margot Robbie graced the screen together as The Joker and Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, and now the announced spin-off focusing on the two has finally found a finished script from Crazy. Stupid. Love‘s Glenn Ficara and John Requa.
RELATED: Exclusive: Margot Robbie Talks Joker and Harley Quinn Film
The two writers recently sat down and spoke with Metro about how they crafted the script and the tone they found, while also discussing the fun they had with writing it. Somehow, Dr. Phil is involved.
“It is great,” Ficarra explained. “The whole thing starts with Harley kidnapping Dr Phil. Played by Dr Phil hopefully. Because her and the Joker are having problems with their relationship. We had so much fun, I don’t know if we have had more fun writing a script in our career. It was sort of like, we wrote ‘Bad Santa’ a couple of years ago, and it was that sensibility mixed with our ‘This Is Us’ sensibility. We kind of meshed them together. We were doing a relationship movie but with the sensibility of a ‘Bad Santa,’ f***ed up, mentally deranged people. It was a lot of fun.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like the Joker and Harley film is a priority at Warner Bros. right now given accelerated development on Birds of Prey as well as Todd Phillips’ Joker movie already shooting in NYC.
“I don’t know where it is on the queue of DC movies,” Requa said.
“We handed the script in and everybody loved it,” added Ficarra. “But I don’t know when they are going to do it. Because I know that they want to do ‘Birds Of Prey’ and they want to do Todd’s ‘Joker’ film first. Maybe if ‘Birds Of Prey’ goes well ours will be next.”
Warner Bros. and DC are also working on a Joker origin movie, with Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here) starring in the lead role over Leto and having no connection to the current DC Extended Universe. The spin-off will be directed and co-written by The Hangover‘s Todd Phillips and 8 Mile‘s Scott Silver and will also star Robert De Niro (The Intern), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Frances Conroy (The Mist) and Brett Cullen (42) and is set to hit theaters on Oct. 4, 2019.
RELATED: Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker Makeup Revealed in Camera Test Video
The Joker has previously been played by Jack Nicholson in Batman, by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and by Jared Leto in Suicide Squad. Leto will also reprise the character in the Suicide Squad sequel.
