Why Margot Robbie chose to do Birds of Prey over Gotham City Sirens

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Although SUICIDE SQUAD may not have received the best reviews, it was a success at the box-office, which as we know, means that a sequel was inevitable. In addition to the upcoming SUICIDE SQUAD sequel helmed by James Gunn, several spinoffs were also announced, including GOTHAM CITY SIRENS, which was to have been directed by David Ayer and would have seen Margot Robbie reprising her role of Harley Queen alongside several other DC villains such as Catwoman and Poison Ivy. GOTHAM CITY SIRENS was not the only SUICIDE SQUAD project which was said to involve Harley Quinn however, as there was also BIRDS OF PREY, another team-up film in which Margot Robbie would be heavily featured.

With GOTHAM CITY SIRENS officially on pause and BIRDS OF PREY set to hit theaters next week, it's clear which project Margot Robbie favoured. While speaking with Nerdist recently, the actress explained why she chose to go with BIRDS OF PREY over GOTHAM CITY SIRENS.

During Suicide Squad–when we would go to Comic-Con and such–I started to realize there was just such a huge fan base for Harley. Whilst I was researching the character I started to read Birds of Prey and first I fell in love with Huntress, and I started looking into all of that. I was like, ‘Wow, there’s so many cool female DC characters and no one knows anything about any of them!’ So what if we had a platform for fans to get to know and fall in love with some of these other amazing women? Focusing on the Gotham City Sirens, there were only three of us and we were all well known, whereas with Birds of Prey you can pick any grouping for that, and I thought that might be the perfect platform to introduce some female characters who might really have some legs in the DC Universe.

Can't fault Robbie's reasoning there. While I've no doubt that Catwoman and Poison Ivy will pop up in some future film (Zoe Kravitz is playing Catwoman in Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN), I'm not as certain whether characters such as Huntress and Black Canary would have gotten a chance to shine if not for BIRDS OF PREY.

Margot Robbie also spoke of the many road-blocks which she encountered during the long development process of BIRDS OF PREY. "Even the quickest movie making process can be at least three years, I reckon," Robbie said. "But this one, it took a little longer, it was a tall order. It was before anyone had done an R-rated comic book film. I was saying, ‘I want to do an R-rated film.’ It was before Wonder Woman and I was saying, ‘I want a female-led action film’ – you know, those things weren’t being done yet. I think they wanted to make sure that if they’re going to take a risk like that, that it was going to be done correctly. So we spent a lot of time developing the script and making everyone feel confident in the material. Then once everyone was on board, some other things started coming out to help them feel like, ‘Oh yeah, this could work.’ After that it started to move really fast, but in the initial stages I think what I was pitching sounded crazy."

We won't have long to wait to find out if Margot Robbie and company were able to pull it off, as BIRDS OF PREY is set to hit theaters on February 7, 2020.