Given the response to the (albeit limited, after edits) Jared Leto Joker in Suicide Squad, you might expect Warner Bros. and its DECU to think about other characters. But the Clown Prince of Crime is foremost in the studio's mind, and now Todd Phillips is on board to co-write and direct a film charting the origins of the grinning loon.
And here's the really weird bit: in a sign that superhero cinema eventually wraps its tentacles around everyone in filmmaking, Martin Scorsese is producing the movie with Phillips. Yes, that Martin Scorsese. According to Deadline, it's all in aid of a new separate banner at Warners that will handle decidedly different takes on DC characters with new actors in some of the roles. This new film, for example, is intended to be an origin story that won't feature any other iteration of the character – so while Leto is still planning to return for the Squad sequel and any Harley Quinn movie, the intent here is to flash back to the Joker's own early days.
With a planned early-'80s setting, the idea will be to craft a hard-boiled, grounded (or as grounded as you can go given the end result of the story) that echoes Scorsese's own crime output. Phillips is at work on the script now with 8 Mile's Scott Silver. The task once that is complete will be to find yet another person to play the man who is destined to become the smiley psychopath.
No indication is given in the story as to when this might appear, but it's either an encouraging sign of the DCEU being willing to experiment, or yet another worrisome development in the still-young linked universe.