With any big-budget blockbuster, you’re going to have a fair share of deleted scenes. Unless you’re someone like Steven Spielberg who only shoots what they need, filmmaking is a fluid process, and sometimes a scene you thought was necessary ends up being perfunctory or over-explanatory. What was originally conveyed in a page of dialogue instead works just as well as a simple look within the context of the film. Suicide Squad, Warner Bros.’ new DC Comics adaptation, is no different, and there’s one character in particular that fans might get to see more of on the eventual Blu-ray.

Much was made about the fact that Suicide Squad introduces Jared Leto as the new Joker, but without spoiling anything, the character only appears in maybe 10-12 minutes of the film altogether and has little impact on the primary narrative. However, speaking with Telestar (via HH), Leto recently revealed that there are quite a few Joker scenes that didn’t make the final cut:

“Oh there are a lot of [deleted] scenes, yeah, there are a lot of scenes that didn’t make it to the final film. And hopefully they’ll see the light of day … who knows?”

Indeed, Collider’s own Steve Weintraub recently spoke with writer/director David Ayer at the press day for Suicide Squad, and the filmmaker confirmed that there’s definitely going to be a fair amount of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray:

“We have a chunk, there’s definitely over 10 minutes of material on there. But this cut of the movie is my cut, there’s no sort of parallel universe version of the movie, the released movie is my cut. And that’s one of the toughest things about writing, shooting, and directing a film, is you end up with these orphans and you fucking love them and you think they’d be amazing scenes and do these amazing things but the film is a dictatorship (laughs), not a democracy, and just because something’s cool and charismatic doesn’t mean it gets to survive in the final cut. The flow of the movie is the highest master.”

When pressed if those deleted scenes include material between Joker and Harley Quinn, Ayer merely offered up a cryptic “…maybe”, so it certainly sounds like there’s more Joker to be found, just not in the final cut of the film.

Speaking of which, Ayer also discussed the editing process on the film and misconceptions people have about the filmmaking process:

“I think there’s a misunderstanding about filmmaking where you can somehow have this crystal ball and understand exactly how everything is going to work together and assemble together. Because remember scripts type word on a page, a black and white page, and when you’re on set you’re dealing with shots and you’re dealing with dailies, and so you have this 7-minute shot and maybe only 10 seconds of that shot is gonna end up in the movie. There’s infinite combinations, infinite knock-on effects, and it’s this strange alchemy that happens and things that you thought during the writing phase breaking your back trying to explain and needs three pages to explain it, you realize it works with just a look on camera in the assembly.”

The filmmaker went on to discuss the difficulty of juggling so many aspects of the movie at once:

“So it’s always a moving target as you try and distill and condense down to the best movie. And this thing was a beast, we had over a million and a half feet of footage, with an ensemble movie, 7 plus major characters that we have to introduce, a very complex story that is not your normal linear story and you’re introducing the audience to a whole new world, plus it just has my sort of sickness as a filmmaker in it, my vibe and attitude. So it just took a lot of work to find the movie, the movie was always there and even in the early cuts we knew we had something, we knew it was going to work, but to get it there…wow.”

Reports have swirled recently that the post-production process of Suicide Squad was maybe more tense and anxiety-ridden than not, but looking back on the project in hindsight, Ayer appears to be happy with the finished version of the film. And audiences finally get to have a look at the movie on their own when it hits theaters starting tonight.

For more on Suicide Squad, peruse our recent coverage below.