Birds of Prey

JP Liz V1 · 24-09-2018 11:13pm #1

Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn film Birds of Prey gets February 2020 release date, Cathy Yan is directing with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jurnee Smolett-Bell, Margaret Qualley and Cristin Milioti rumoured for roles

Source Variety

conorhal · 26-09-2018 10:54am

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn film Birds of Prey gets February 2020 release date, Cathy Yan is directing with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jurnee Smolett-Bell, Margaret Qualley and Cristin Milioti rumoured for roles

Source Variety

Another odd DC decision. Why is Harley Quinn in a Birds of Prey film? Why is a villan part of a superhero team instead of the super-villan group of female DC baddies, 'Gotham City Sirens'? Which was proposed as one of the list of Harley Quinn projects.
Nothing DC does seems to make a whole lot of sense, this is a)the wrong project and b) yet another 'cart before the horse' scenario that pitches a team up movie involving characters that have never even appeared in a standalone movie. It seems that yet again we're going to get the 'sling mud at a wall and see what sticks' approach to cinematic universe building rather then laying down the groundwork.

pixelburp · 26-09-2018 12:59pm

Surprised Robbie is interested in returning to the role and isn't pulling a Jennifer Lawrence, trying to wriggle out of any commitments now that she's famous and lauded.

As for the DC strategy, given they apparently green-lit a Blackhack Squadron film, while The Flash lies in the doldrums, who knows what they're doing.

Agent Coulson · 27-09-2018 12:58pm

Mary Elizabeth Winstead cast as Huntress.

pixelburp · 27-09-2018 1:06pm

Jurnee Smolett-Bell also cast as Black Canary.

Winstead's a funny one: someone elsewhere remarked, and I'm inclined to agree, that she's one of those actors not as famous as she should be. She's talented and versatile (turned in a great performance for Fargo Season 3), yet never quite landed that breakout role to push her into the A-listing. Maybe it's not something she actively pursued, who knows.

Agent Coulson · 27-09-2018 1:16pm

I'd say she is more famous for being the woman Ewan McGregor left his wife for to the majority of the general public than a talented actress.

And speaking of McGregor he is being linked to play the Villain in this.

CastorTroy · 27-09-2018 10:32pm

Being literal in their casting. After seeing the likes of Black Lightning and Black Panther, they think that's why she's called Black Canary?
And working it out, she is now the 7th to play a live action Black Canary.
Looking at her previous stuff, only thing I remember her from is Friday Night Lights

Don't know about Winstead as Huntress.

Now the 2 questions are since 2 of the rumoured names turned out to be true, who will the others play?
And will Batgirl be in it? Qualley in that role? I don't think so if they're going to have her be friends with the other 2 who are about 10 years older the Qualley. But casting a younger actress makes sense considering how long it takes them to make these movies and they plan on a Batgirl movie at some point.

EoinMcLovin · 01-11-2018 8:55pm

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I'd say she is more famous for being the woman Ewan McGregor left his wife for to the majority of the general public than a talented actress.

And speaking of McGregor he is being linked to play the Villain in this.

McGregor confirmed to be playing Black Mask
https://variety.com/2018/film/news/ewan-mcgregor-black-mask-birds-of-prey-1203017487/

JP Liz V1 · 07-01-2019 12:50am

Chris Messina will play Victor Zsasz

EoinMcLovin · 28-01-2019 6:32pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_FTsR5QfDQ

pixelburp · 28-01-2019 6:47pm

Look like screen-tests to me.

Really don't like the DCEU Harley though, don't dig the trashy look at all.

pixelburp · 16-04-2019 2:31pm

Filming on this has wrapped, so I guess a trailer mightn't be too far in the future...

justinbellford · 16-04-2019 11:47pm

The only thing that has me vaguely interested is a cinematic depiction of Black Mask. I fully expect this to be another Suicide Squad scenario.

Agent Coulson · 05-09-2019 10:20pm

pixelburp · 05-09-2019 10:52pm

So all those shots of Black Mask have him looking curiously unmasked. Classic case of a face too famous to hide. Unless they're pulling the Origin Story tactic and we'll get one shot, at the very end, of Roman Sionis wearing his mask. And still yet to warm to Robbie's "Bratz" esque Harley

Agent Coulson · 01-10-2019 5:07pm

brianregan09 · 01-10-2019 8:14pm

Looks awful

pixelburp · 01-10-2019 8:25pm

Looks like Poochie levels of forced "cool" TBH, and really not digging the Black Mask without said black mask. It'll take some stellar reviews, or boredom, to get me to the cinema on the back of that trailer.

Varik · 01-10-2019 10:07pm

She sounds different, accent she's putting on isn't the same.

jaxxx · 01-10-2019 10:13pm

*yawns

Skip!

CastorTroy · 02-10-2019 10:19pm

Oooookay. If that was meant to get people interested, it failed. I couldn't even tell who the others are meant to be.

jaxxx · 02-10-2019 10:24pm

CastorTroy wrote: »

Oooookay. If that was meant to get people interested, it failed. I couldn't even tell who the others are meant to be.

Before seeing trailer: "Wow Black Canary's in this?? Awesome!"

After seeing trailer: "Umm, where's Black Canary?"

yourdeadwright · 04-10-2019 11:29am

Looks awful ,
Its amazing how poor all the DC movies are ,even when they have good casting they just make awful movies ,

c.p.w.g.w · 04-10-2019 11:26pm

Saw the trailer tonight on the big screen...looks dreadful, hopefully it bombs.

The studios might need to look at comic book genre movies with female leads.
Captain Marvel was absolute garbage.
Catwoman absolutely dreadful.

Fysh · 04-10-2019 11:56pm

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Saw the trailer tonight on the big screen...looks dreadful, hopefully it bombs.

The studios might need to look at comic book genre movies with female leads.
Captain Marvel was absolute garbage.
Catwoman absolutely dreadful.

Catwoman? As in, Catwoman from 15 years ago? Not really relevant to the current state of superhero films, tbh, so not sure why you'd bring it up. Perhaps you meant Wonder Woman on the DCEU side? But, oops, made $800M and has favourable audience and critical reviews. Never mind...

Captain Marvel seems to have made some MCU fans extremely salty, but to say the film was absolute garbage is to ignore that it is, basically, a generic MCU movie that has a female lead (and a 90s setting because nostalgia mining is a thing, but the 90s thing clearly isn't what's chapping people's arses...). It's unexceptional rather than bad, and oddly all the reviews claiming it's awful also go off on rants about feminism being the devil and other dustbin-of-history nonsense. Weirdly, film critics have been middling rather than devastating in their reviews of it, which wouldn't be the case if it were a Bayformers-esque car crash of a film. And it made over a billion dollars worldwide, so clearly it was a hit with at least some audiences.

(Making over a billion dollars doesn't preclude being a bad film - see Bayformers - but then it's a bit weird that the only MCU film to clear a billion dollars yet get the hate is also the only one with a single female lead... Unless it's the internet asshat brigade at play, of course).

Anyway.

This trailer, specifically, does look pretty rubbish, and feels a lot like someone who was developing a BoP film was told to incorporate Robbie's Harley Quinn as one of the few bright spots of the DCEU, which is a shame as it suggests that WB are still meddling rather than taking a more hands-off approach. Hopefully this won't have a knock on effect on James Gunn's work on Suicide Squad 2, as he's the best hope that film has of turning into something good...

pixelburp · 05-10-2019 11:35am

Gender has nothing to do with how bad this trailer looks FFS. Aside from anything else, it's a bad trailer cos it doesn't actually say what the film is ABOUT. It's clearly slanted towards Margot Robbies trashy interpretation of Harley, at the expense of anything else in the promotion. And while not as brazen as Suicide Squad, that same superficial corporate-punk styling is as fake as Robbie's Bahhhstan accent.

Something tells me this is going to get butchered in the editing room/reshoots. Quick, more Margot Robbie! More. Morrrre. I've given up on the DC films as creative endeavours because it's clear the studio have a heavy touch, and can't let things grow. If the same people who have the editing of Suicide Squad to marketing company are still in charge, they've clearly learnt nothing.

Xaniaj · 05-10-2019 11:44am

Why are they even pretending this is a BoP movie??

pixelburp · 05-10-2019 11:57am

Xaniaj wrote: »

Why are they even pretending this is a BoP movie??

Because the original script probably started as that, maybe with Harley as a side character, and the studio likely demanded a rewrite to push her into the forefront as Robbie's star power grew. Same as with Jennifer Lawrence and those X-Men movies.

Slydice · 09-01-2020 5:13pm

Woops.. they accidareleased the final trailer and started rapidly pulling it back down...

but people started posting it so looks like they're releasing it:
https://twitter.com/birdsofpreywb/status/1215305227668197378

Slydice · 09-01-2020 5:18pm

On youtube now:

pixelburp · 09-01-2020 5:31pm

A better trailer IMO, though probably because of a better look at Black Mask, in his mask (though IIRC isn't he meant to be in it all the time in the comics? Can't immediately recall if Roman Sionis ever actually walked around normally).

Sleepy · 09-01-2020 5:47pm

Honestly, I'll probably torrent it or catch it whenever it's released to Netflix. Not one I'd pay to see in the cinema.

Agent Coulson · 09-01-2020 6:30pm

Still looks awful to me ye this will be one to watch if I come across in on a streaming service i won't be going out of my way to watch it.

fluke · 10-01-2020 1:35pm

That hyena is Jumanji levels dodge.

Slydice · 08-02-2020 12:23am

Just back. Saw it in 2D on the IMAX. No end-credits scene but there is a line but I don't *think* it's setting up another film or anything.
This film is a hard R rating! Do not bring kids to this film unless you're cool with them seeing:

people having their faces cut off

in a kinda on-screen/off-screen combo.
Felt like a real follow-on from Suicide Squad except with more of a focus on what the gangster side of Gotham is like.. with a focus on what it's like for Harley.

It was reasonably fast enough paced so I didn't lose attention. It did feel like a build up the team from scratch film.

It really setup for the final battle well.. something about the lead-in events really built it up... then.. the final battle was like.. OK.. but maybe a bit much on the changing camera angles trick.
The final chase was cool and Harley really popped in how she handled being on skates and fought took the car out.
Taking out Black Mask with the grenade had a pro and a con. The con was that I felt it was a bit of an easy way out.. the pro was WOW! I didn't see that coming at all. I was like WTF! and then BOOM!

:eek:

branie2 · 08-02-2020 12:45am

I saw it this evening, and I really enjoyed it

titan18 · 08-02-2020 1:08am

Saw it tonight and thought it was a bit crap tbh. Don't really see why there's love for it. Just a poor film that only really looks good when you compare to Suicide Squad.

Slydice · 08-02-2020 11:20am

There's gotta be some memes coming out of this film though!

Especially the Huntress bits

"Do you know who I am?"

1o059k7ewrqj3n · 09-02-2020 7:52pm

Saw it today, wasn't great tbh. Bit formulaic, few laughs. First half of the film feels bloated, by the time it comes to wrap things up I was bored and it didn't really have much punch. It felt like a music video at times.

silverharp · 10-02-2020 2:55pm

seems to be a bit of an opening flop?

pixelburp · 10-02-2020 3:03pm

Was bound to happen with the DC films, there had to be a flop coming, and was a big swing basing a $84 million film off lower tier characters in the comics universe. Honestly, they should have taken another go at making a Birds of Prey TV series than a chance on a mangled movie adaptation, released at the tale end of January (more or less) while mostly being a vehicle for Margot Robbie.

Bigbagofcans · 10-02-2020 4:17pm

Robbie's accent in the trailer is very off-putting I must say. It wasn't that pronounced in Suicide Squad.

El Duda · 11-02-2020 9:37am

This film really brings out the best in people on twitter.

chrislad · 11-02-2020 10:59am

Saw it last week. It was perfectly fine. Yeah, it had the advantage that it couldn't have been as bad as Suicide Squad. I wasn't a big fan of Robbie as Harley in general, and this didn't fix that, but the supporting cast kind of saved it for me. A solid 6/10 movie, and a nice way to blow through 2 hours with the brain disengaged.

CastorTroy · 11-02-2020 1:42pm

Seems some cinema chains are now listing the film as "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey"

This may just be due to not being able to fit the whole title on their apps or it may be official

El Duda · 11-02-2020 2:11pm

It's an official name change.

Reeks of desperation.

brianregan09 · 11-02-2020 4:28pm

Typical Studio not understanding a character imo , harley quinn was never a lead character , She is a fantastic character but like loads of other (male too) characters don't work outside of there normal confines

Slydice · 11-02-2020 9:22pm

CastorTroy wrote: »

Seems some cinema chains are now listing the film as "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey"

This may just be due to not being able to fit the whole title on their apps or it may be official

It's a good idea cos that's pretty much a better description of the film.

I've seen talk of a Gotham City Sirens film being and given the characters involved (Harley, Poison Ivy and Catwoman), I'd definitely prefer for it not to become another Harley film.

CastorTroy · 12-02-2020 11:20am

Ign reported it's not an official title change and just to benefit apps. Basically "Harley Quinn" and "Birds of Prey" are the main search terms.

Haven't seen the film yet. Seems to be getting better reviews than expected.
I'm sure they'll blame the poor box office on the age rating

jim-jam · 12-02-2020 6:45pm

Just out of it. It was grand. Like one of the posters already mentioned the first half is over bloated and by the time the action kicks off I was bored.

There were some funny bits but few and far between. It does feel like a music video at times and it nearly crossed a line into Moulin Rouge territory with Black Mask and Harley at one point.

Slydice · 13-02-2020 12:40am

CastorTroy wrote: »

Ign reported it's not an official title change and just to benefit apps. Basically "Harley Quinn" and "Birds of Prey" are the main search terms.

Haven't seen the film yet. Seems to be getting better reviews than expected.
I'm sure they'll blame the poor box office on the age rating

It's getting solid 6 out of 10 from what I can see.
It feels like a Harley story and an intro to the BOP.
Could be they are just trying to set a foundation.
There again it's WB so .. who knows!

Birds of Prey

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