Harley Quinn Ditches the Joker in First Birds of Prey Trailer
“You know what a harlequin is? A harlequin’s role is to serve. It’s nothing without a master.” These are the lines that open the first trailer for Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey, spoken by star/producer Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, the former sociopathic sidekick to the Joker who is lighting out here on her own. The first trailer reveals that Harley and her former main squeeze, the Joker, have broken up. The hand-drawn image of the Joker that she throws a knife at looks very much like the version Jared Leto played in 2016’s Suicide Squad, the film that gave us Robbie’s gangbusters breakout performance as Harley Quinn. In fact, Robbie’s Harley Quinn was by far the best thing about that film.
Harley’s moving on, however, looking for a fresh start. “It turns out I wasn’t the only dame in Gotham looking for emancipation,” she says. The other dames in search of new beginnings are the future Batgirl (Ella Jay Basco), the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Rosie Perez’s Gotham City detective Renee Montoya, and Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell). Her new friends bring all sorts of unique skills and personalities, but the first trailer is, understandably, the Harley Quinn show.
This first look reveals that Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Miss Harley Quinn) will feature a new man trying to make Harley his. In this case, it’s one of Gotham’s craziest villains—Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). Harley and her new pals aren’t really in the market for any male partners, let alone another lunatic who thinks he’s in charge. Watching them violently take down the patriarchy will be one of this film’s chief pleasures.
Check out the first Birds of Prey trailer here. The film opens on February 7, 2020.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) ROSIE PEREZ as Renee Montoya, MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD as Huntress, MARGOT ROBBIE as Harley Quinn, ELLA JAY BASCO as Cassandra Cain and JURNEE SMOLLETT-BELL as Black Canary in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN),” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Claudette Barius
