If you could go back in time and witness any historical event, what would it be? This is a time-honored question among drunk friends everywhere. For some, the answer is religious; for others, historical. These days, I’m pretty sure my answer would be to throw this incredible gift right out the damn window and go back to the moment Jared Leto sat down to watch Todd Phillips‘s “Joker” for the first time. It’d be like traveling to Chernobyl in 1986 without the radiation or loss of life.
READ MORE: Jared Leto Says He “Would Definitely” Play The Joker Again
For the past few weeks, there have been plenty of whispers and rumors about Leto’s displeasure at seeing another actor take on the character of the Joker for Warner Bros. According to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kim Masters, Leto was so displeased with Phillips’s standalone “Joker” movie that he pressured his agents at CAA—who also feature Phillips as a client—to kill the project before it got off the ground. “Sources say the actor felt his agents should have told him about the Phillips project earlier and fought harder for his version of Joker,” Masters wrote. “Sources say Leto told his agents that they should stop the rival project, arguing that he wasn’t being treated properly as an Oscar winner.”
READ MORE: Let’s Talk About “Joker” and Best Picture Odds
The article also notes that Leto left CAA over the summer, but cites a source in the actor’s camp who claimed it had nothing to do with the fallout from “Joker.” Regardless of who you believe, it seems that Leto is happy to continue working with Warner Bros. on upcoming projects—including the Denzel Washington-led thriller “The Little Things“—so the only real losers here are CAA and Hollywood news aggregators across the world. Leto also recently suggested he’d play the Joker again without hesitation, so who knows what the future holds? This whole thing seems like one big… oh, what’s the word? Something you say intending to make others laugh? Wait a minute, and it’ll come to me.