Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) premiered this weekend to critical praise, being called “a fun, madcap, and insane ride” with “highly stylized” visuals and several excellent performances on its way to earning a 92% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Taking a cue from Deadpool’s record-breaking first outing, Birds of Prey features the fourth-wall smashing narration of its lead character along with a non-linear storyline, and functions as a spinoff of David Ayer’s 2016 antihero team-up film Suicide Squad with the return of Margot Robbie as former-psychiatrist-turned-Joker-devotee Harleen Quinzel and a minuscule cameo by at least one of her other teammates from Waller’s first incarnation of Task Force X.
Harley Quinn is also set to return, along with Amanda Waller, Rick Flag and Digger Harkness, in James Gunn’s official standalone sequel The Suicide Squad in August of 2021, but Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan already knows what she’d like to do in her own potential follow-up involving the character. Speaking with The Wrap, Yan indicated that she “would love to see Poison Ivy, and I would certainly love to see the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.”
The two women have a long history in print, both having been confirmed as bisexual and dating by Harley Quinn series creators Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, a fact that Birds of Prey subtly incorporated. They’ve even been revealed to be married to each other in the parallel universe of the Injustice 2 comic book. Yan’s Birds of Prey film sets the stage for that relationship from the outset, with Harley explaining that the Joker has cast her aside after having extracted her from the Belle Reve Special Security Barracks at the end of Suicide Squad.
Pamela Isley, also known as the hyperbotanical supervillain Poison Ivy, most recently appeared on Gotham, played alternately by Clare Foley, Maggie Geha and Peyton List, but hasn’t been portrayed on the big screen since Uma Thurman filled the role in Joel Schumacher’s 1997 abomination Batman & Robin. She currently appears, voiced by Lake Bell, as Harley’s platonic partner-in-crime on the animated Harley Quinn series airing on the DC Universe streaming service.
One of the prospective projects where Yan’s wish could come to fruition though might be Gotham City Sirens, which DC Films has been developing since the end of 2016, though Ayer is currently attached to direct it. That story would team Harley, Poison Ivy and Catwoman, who’s currently set to appear next in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, where she’ll be played by Zoë Kravitz.
But looking closer to home, Birds of Prey can be seen in theaters now, with Wonder Woman 1984 following as the DCEU’s next effort on June 5th, and The Batman scheduled for June 25th, 2021 and The Suicide Squad set to debut on August 6th, 2021.
