Earlier this month,The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Jared Leto felt "alienated and upset" when Warner Bros. cast Joaquin Phoenix as the star of Joker.
But now, the outlet says the Oscar winner's disdain for the Todd Phillips-directed project was so strong that he actually tried to stop it from happening.
"Early on...he tried to throttle the rival Joker in its cradle,"THR reports. "He not only complained bitterly to his agents at CAA, who also represent Phillips, but asked his music manager, Irving Azoff, to call the leader of Warners parent company...The idea was to get Warners to kill the Phillips film."
With Joker now earning hundreds of millions of dollars, it seems Leto won't be reprising his Joker character in at least two upcoming Suicide Squad sequels: director James Gunn’s Suicide Squad reboot (set for 2021) and next year’s Harley Quinn spinoff Birds of Prey.