While the newly-rechristened Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (unofficially dropping its cumbersome parenthetical subtitle And The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn) still holds matching 79% critical and audience scores at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, putting it just ahead of the billion-dollar earner Captain Marvel‘s 78%, the latest entry in the DC Extended Universe is struggling to overcome its underwhelming $33 million opening weekend, which landed it among the poorest performers in the history of DC Comics adaptations.
Now, we’re hearing from our sources – the same folks who tipped us off that Chris Wood will be returning to his role as Mon-El on Supergirl and that Manu Bennett would be back as Deathstroke for the eighth season of Arrow, both of which have since been confirmed – that execs at Warner Bros. are interested in introducing a new version of Harley Quinn separate from Margot Robbie’s portrayal. Matt Reeves, director of next year’s Caped Crusader film The Batman, seemingly wants to include Dr. Harleen Quinzel in one of his prospective sequels, but not the incarnation that we’ve see thus far.
Of course, this hardly means that Robbie is out of a job. Her near-future in the DCEU remains secure considering that she’s currently filming her character’s return in James Gunn’s film The Suicide Squad, the standalone sequel to the 2016 David Ayer pic Suicide Squad that introduced her version of the psychiatrist-turned-villain-turned-antihero in the first place. And Reeves’ take on the early adventures of the Dark Knight is, like Todd Phillips’ Academy Award winning interpretation of Joker, meant to exist outside the continuity of the DCEU altogether, so it only makes sense they would need a new actress for Harley.
Currently sitting on a $145 million worldwide haul after a week-and-a-half in release, Birds of Prey experienced a modest 47.6% dropoff from its first weekend to its second (or just 39.8%, if you account for the extended Presidents Day holiday). Perhaps due in part to the support of long-time Harley Quinn scribe Jimmy Palmiotti coupled with an outpouring of fan support for the film on Twitter, that surprisingly puts the movie amongst the DCEU’s best weekend-to-weekend performers, not far off of Wonder Woman‘s 43.3% drop and a far cry from Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s 69.1% plummet, or even Suicide Squad‘s 67.4% plunge.
Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey is currently playing in theaters, with the Patty Jenkins sequel Wonder Woman 1984 due out on June 5th, The Batman set to debut on June 25th, 2021 and The Suicide Squad scheduled to premiere on August 6th, 2021.