Suicide Squad Spinoff Gotham City Sirens Reunites Margot Robbie & Director David Ayer
Arguably the villain that popped the most in Suicide Squad was the deliriously deviant Harley Quinn, played with infectious brio by star Margot Robbie. While we heard that Warner Bros. was looking to expand their DC cinematic universe this past summer, it's still great to hear that the first Suicide Squad spinoff is going to focus on the film's most electric character and and place her in an all-female villain story. Director David Ayer will return to direct, giving him a chance to helm the first superhero film to focus purely on the superbad women of comics in Gotham City Sirens.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the story that Ayer and Robbie will be re-teaming and will likely complete the first Suicide Squad spinoff, followed by a film focused on Will Smith's Deadshot. Ayer will direct and produce the film, with Robbie both starring and serving as executive producer. Another good sign is the script is being written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet, the scribe who took on Sherlock Holmes 3, Dungeons & Dragons and the Tomb Raider reboot. The nature of the story will of course be secret for a long time, save for the alluring premise that the best female villains from DC Comics will be in the mix.
Giving Harley Quinn her only movie and putting her back in Gotham City will inevitably lead to some kind of Joker subplot, which then gives the filmmakers the chance to show just how much agency Quinn has when it comes to her relationship with the Joker. If it turns out Quinn's not the Joker's toy but is the one pulling the strings, and if we get a chance to see Quinn rub shoulders with the likes of Poison Ivy (another former Joker gal who effectively got away from him), Gotham City Sirens has a chance to be not only a commerical smash for DC, but also a novel, feminist take on the superhero film. Plus, with Wonder Woman slated for next year, Gotham City Sirens will also get show what bad girls can do in a big film, and one imagines Ayer and his team will have a lot more time to work on this then they did with Suicide Squad, a film that was written and completed (and partially re-shot) in very short order.
And the true bottom line, at least at this early stage, is they've got a bonafide superstar in Robbie, easily the most fun superhero of the year, and that includes two fantastic cameos in Captain America: Civil War; Tom Holland's as Spider-Man and Chadwick Boseman's as Black Panther. In fact, come to think of it, if they could ever just cross universes and get Marvel and DC together, these three would be an amazing centerpiece for a film.
