While it’s earning positive reviews, certainly much more so than Suicide Squad, it has to be said that Birds of Prey is falling far short of expectations at the box office. Though its relatively low budget, at around $80 million, stops it from being a complete embarrassment, there’s no way of spinning the fact that it has the weakest opening weekend of any DCEU movie yet.
Of course, this heavily suggests that any planned spinoffs for the likes of Black Canary or Huntress are unlikely to go ahead. What’s also possible, though, is that the prominence of Harley Quinn in the DCEU could also be reduced. We Got This Covered has been informed by our sources – the same ones who told us that Diana will get her Golden Eagle armor in Wonder Woman 1984 and Kevin Conroy would play Kingdom Come Batman in “Crisis,” both of which were correct – that Warner Bros. is considering diminishing Margot Robbie’s role in the franchise going forward.
It seems this is just a knee-jerk reaction to BoP flopping and isn’t set in stone, but they’re apparently thinking about it given that the character’s and the actress’ popularity is clearly not as big a draw as they expected. Something they’re even considering doing, we’re told, is reducing Robbie/Harley’s presence in the marketing for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, while they may (note that added emphasis) even cut back her screentime in the film in post-production.
Obviously, if they do decide to go down this route, this means that other Harley-centric projects that have been discussed wouldn’t go ahead anymore. Most folks have probably assumed that the likes of Gotham City Sirens and the Harley/Joker movie were already canned, but actually, they’re still percolating in development. Now, though, the plug could be pulled on them.
For Harley Quinn fans, this is obviously troubling news, but it’s important to stress again that this is just something being discussed and isn’t a certainty. Although, it only makes sense, from a financial perspective, for the studio to move on to other characters now that Birds of Prey has failed to fly. And while they can always end up changing their mind – we all know how fickle WB is with the DCEU, after all – we’ve no reason to doubt this intel, as it comes from the same sources who also told us Viola Davis would be back for The Suicide Squad and Han would return in Fast & Furious 9, both of which ended up being correct.
