No joke: Jared Leto will return as The Joker for Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder's updated version of Justice League is adding a cast member in the form of The Clown Prince of Crime. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jared Leto has signed on to reprise his role as The Joker for the expanded film, which is being assembled under the title Zack Snyder's Justice League, adding another star to an already star-packed DC Extended Universe event. 

Leto's Joker, who first appeared in 2016's Suicide Squad, was not a part of the original 2017 Justice League, which was completed by writer/director Joss Whedon after Snyder stepped aside due to a family tragedy. The actor is joining Snyder's reshoots for the film, which will also include new work from previously cast Justice League stars like Ben Affleck, Ray Fisher, and Amber Heard. It's not clear at this point just how active Leto will be in the final film, but he and Affleck's Batman have only shared one brief scene together in the DCEU so far. Perhaps Snyder's cut is set to give them a bigger showdown. 

After years of speculation and demand from Snyder fans for his definitive "Snyder Cut" version of Justice League, Warner Bros. announced earlier this year that the filmmaker would be given the opportunity to revisit the film for a release on HBO Max. Since that announcement it's become clear that, through the completion of pre-existing scene concepts and production on new material, Zack Snyder's Justice League is growing into something bigger than a single feature film. The new cut will air as a four-part miniseries on HBO Max next year, and include everything from additional scenes of Superman's resurrection to the legendary DC Comics supervillain Darkseid.

Leto's introduction is not the only reported personnel shift behind the scenes of Snyder's Justice League. The reshoots also reportedly include a kind of soft exit for both Jon Berg and Geoff Johns, who had producer credits on the theatrical release of the film. Those credits will reportedly not appear in Zack Snyder's Justice League. Johns and Berg were in the news over the summer in connection with Justice League when Fisher, who plays Cyborg in the film, accused them both of enabling "abusive" on-set behavior by Whedon, but those accusations are reportedly not what motivated this decision. Both are no longer working in the same capacity at Warner Bros., and they will have no hand in Snyder's new version of the film.

Zack Snyder's Justice League arrives next year on HBO Max.