There are a few exciting DCEU projects in the works and set for release in the near future, including Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) starring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.
The movie will give us a better understanding of Harley Quinn, but many fans were surprised to learn Jared Leto’s Joker wouldn’t appear in the film, and it instead focuses on giving her a new group of friends.
Now, Robbie, who also acts as a producer on the film, has revealed why Leto won’t appear in the film, and she’s got a very good reason for it.
The actress spoke to ComicBook.Com and said it was a “conscious choice” not to include the Joker in the film.
She said, “It was either going to be a complete Harley and Joker story or Joker has got to be out of the picture… I really wanted to see Harley in a girl gang and I felt there was a huge gap in the market for a girl gang ensemble action film. I felt like no one was doing that and I couldn’t understand why, especially a comic book movie.”
It makes sense, if the Joker was going to part of the movie, it would really have to be a very different story about them as a couple – a movie that was originally meant to happen after Suicide Squad.
When the film starts, Harley has severed ties with her abusive ex, who doesn’t appear once in the film.
“From the very beginning it was a conscious choice of they have to be broken up at this stage,” Robbie said. “I have a whole backstory in my head [of] what’s happened between what you saw at the end of Suicide Squad and what you see at the beginning of Birds of Prey.”
She spoke about the movie’s baddie, Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), a narcissistic criminal known as Black Mask. In the film, every member of the girl gang has a problem with Black Mask.
Quinn’s girl gang features Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez).
Screenwriter Christina Hodson said, “Each of them has such a personal reason why they don’t like him and why he doesn’t like them.”
“That natural kind of antagonism with each of them feels personal and grounded rather than feeling like, ‘I’m going to blow up the world,’ big Machiavellian-like moustache-twirling. And that felt so right in this world.”
Margot Robbie’s Birds of Prey is out in cinemas on February 6.