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Pre-Release
Harley has minor superpowers based on cartoon logic.
- We see her have many cartoonish behaviors, some of which defy logic.
- This explains how she made the quick-change from boots to roller skates so quickly (lampshaded in-scene).
- While facing off the goon who was pissed that she dared the Joker to tattoo his face, she ducks while saying "ooh! a penny!" which caused her to dodge his swing and gave Huntress a full target to his neck. That kind of thing only applies to cartoons and would make sense considering her origin.
Harley will tell Black Canary about her daughter she had with Joker that she gave to her sister to raise.
- Jossed. No mention of a pregnancy by Harley to anyone in the film.
Barbara Gordon has already been paralyzed by the Joker, and Cass becomes her successor.
As a nod to the comics, the DCEU version of The Killing Joke happened in the past much like how Robin is already dead. The bulk of the movie has Cass without a codename as she's escape from her father, but in the end she takes on the mantle of Batgirl, which sets up the Batgirl movie down the line. A move like this would be bold, but praised, as despite what people think, Barbara hadn't been Batgirl for 23 years and her return to it and the initial attempt to delete Cass from existence just because she was becoming well-liked at Barbara's expense was very controversial. This is supported by the apparent lack of Barbara in the initial reveal (and that beforehand it was said she would appear, but not as Batgirl). You may also notice that when they announced Batgirl, not once did they refer to her being Barbara, just that everyone assumed this was the case.- In Batgirl, Barbara will be Cassandra's mentor, as well as her mission control. Flashbacks will depict her own career as Batgirl.
Stephanie Brown will make a minor appearance.
Cass and Steph are Heterosexual Life-Partners, so ideally they should get set up later.- Jossed.
The Big Bad is David Cain.
A lesser-known Batman villain that hasn't made a film debut yet, which sounds like he could be it. The potential for personal drama between him and his daughter itself could carry a movie.- Jossed. It's Black Mask.
Lady Shiva will appear, but as a minor role.
She could be set up for the future Batgirl movie, as ideally she would be encountered after David Cain.Barbara Gordon is not named on the line-up because she's being saved for The Stinger
.Perhaps the titular Birds of Prey are formed unknowingly by Barbara off-screen, who's recruiting the characters without their knowledge. The end of the movie via The Stinger will show Barbara in her wheelchair working in front of computers, heralding her role as Oracle.Costume speculation
What do you think the characters will look like in this movie?- Harley Quinn:
- A modernized remake of her Batman: The Animated Series costume with added aspects of her later looks. While a full-fledged version probably wouldn't translate well, she could get a red-on-black tight suit that evokes the image. She'll be unmasked with her blond hair loose, and will have cleavage and/or high heels.
- Her same costume from Suicide Squad, but made slightly more tasteful, with full leather pants and a coat resembling her classic color scheme added to the ensemble.
- Unlikely as Robbie promised a new look and having the same costume but "more tasteful" doesn't really sound like it'd fit.
- Speaking of Suicide Squad, a costume of hers
◊ didn't make it to either the theatrical or extended version. Maybe that "new look" could borrow to it.
- Something close to Arkham City◊ perhaps.
- Or her Rebirth◊ outfit.
- Black Canary: Her signature black unitard with a leather jacket over it, and of course fishnets.
- Huntress: Purple and white hooded tight suit with a utility belt, and fingerless gloves.
- Renee Montoya: Simple jacket with pants, assuming she hasn't become the Question at this point.
- Cassandra Cain: Elements taken across her appearances as Batgirl, Black Bat and Orphan. She'll have yellow decals on the black parts, a scarf mask, various armor pieces, and a utility belt.
- Black Mask: A black leisure suit with thin white lines, with a red dress shirt and black necktie underneath. His mask will be shiny and metallic looking and his skin underneath it will poke out in some places, showing some of his scars. If they want to look especially evil, he'll have cufflinks shaped like skulls with red jewels in the eye sockets.
- If he does dress like that, one of the characters (probably Harley) will lampshade his Obviously Evil ensemble with a joke:
Harley: (calling out to Black Mask, unseen) Hey, got a joke for ya?
Black Mask: What?
Harley: What's black and red and bruised all over? (she drops in from behind and clocks him on the noggin with her bat; he seems dazed but gets back up)
Black Mask: That's it! Now you're gonna die!
Harley: Thank you; I'll be here all week! (she blows him a kiss, then dodges an oncoming attack)
Batman (Ben Affleck) and the Joker (Jared Leto) will have short appearances
Batman because of Cassandra Cain's background, obviously. And it would be a great appetizer to tease his upcoming movie. And the Joker because it could help in any scene explaining how Harley went from breaking out of Belle Reve in Suicide Squad to joining the Birds of Prey.- Confirmed for Leto's Joker.
The movie will be narrated by Harley Quinn and use the Framing Device of her telling the story to someone else.
It would be in line with what Margot Robbie wrote under the title on the script ("the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn").- Bonus if the Stinger reveals she's been telling it to any combination of Barbara Gordon, Selina Kyle and Pamela Isley, attempting to convince them to either join the Birds of Prey, or make a team of their own.
Black Mask and Joker are working together.
What It Says On The Tin. It would give Harley more motivation to take down Black Mask, if she's trying to spite Joker. At some point Huntress will claim to be related to Bruce Wayne.
Whether serious or not it would be a nice call back to the original Huntress. Huntress will be a Composite Character of the Helena Bertinelli and the Helena Wayne versions.
In that she's a member of the Birds of Prey and Batman's daughter. The "Batman's daughter" thing will likely be a twist revealed in a credits scene of some sorts, possibly one where she takes Cass to Wayne Manor out of belief that Bruce would be able to provide for her better than Helena or any of the other Birds could. Her being Bats's daughter could be via either one of two ways: 1) Bruce adopted her after the murder of her parents or 2) she's his biological daughter (most likely with Catwoman). If the latter's the case, her being a former Mafia Princess is some sort of tall tale made up to keep people from connecting the dots between her and Batman while her having the last name Bertinelli is to keep people from connecting the dots between her and Bruce. Bonus points if she references a brother who died. Black Mask will say "Hello There" at one point
It wouldn't be too difficult to work into the script, and it'd be a neat little in-joke.- Alternatively, he'll spend the majority of the film obsessing over the high ground (be it literal or moral).
- Other Obi-Wan jokes:
- He will call someone uncivilized.
- He will call his crimes good from " a certain point of view" to justify his evil actions.
- He will scoff at "absolutes".
- He will taunt someone about how he will get more powerful after he dies.
- He'll blame one of his henchmen for a plan failing, and the henchman will object, saying "Hold on, this operation was your idea".
Jossed. There are no Star Wars references at all.
The Birds and Zsaz will team up in an Enemy Mine sort of situation against Black Mask
There's a set video of Cassandra being put in the back of a cop car saying "I didn't do anything" with Black Canary and Zsaz running to try to get to her in time. After the car drives off, they start arguing and BC says "I gave her to you!". Why would she have given Cassandra to him unless he's turned against Black Mask? Zsaz is said to be one of his henchmen.- Alternatively, they may not know that he works for Black Mask and he could betray them instead of him betraying Black Mask.
- Jossed. Huntress kills him at the end
The Black Mask is a Decoy Antagonist, with the Joker usurping him as the Big Bad.
Be it in the form of The Joker working with and disposing Black Mask, or the two being seperate threats with the Joker ultimatley being the bigger one.
It'd be hardly the first time they pulled this card with villains superhero media (especially with those characters). However the main reason I believe this will be the case is can be summed up with the It's Personal trope.
- Unlikely. Jared Leto probably won't come back, Joaquin Phoenix doesn't want to associate with the DCEU, and another recast makes little sense. At best, the Joker might be a never-seen Greater Scope V Illain.
See Harley is being billed as the lead and her story about finding emancipation from the Joker. In most, if not all incarnations, the Joker and Halrey's relationship was always unstable, and since Harley needed to seperate herself from the Joker, it can be inferred their relationship will be presented in a more negative light than Suicide Squad (2016). Even then, the DCEU!Joker seems obsessed enough with her to not let her go so easily.
The point is, since Harley's character arc revolves around leaving and freeing herself from the Joker, narrative wise it would make more sense and hold more wieght than whatever threat the Black Mask could pose to her. The Black Mask may be Harley's antagonist, but not her monster.
- Ultimately jossed. He does not play a role in this movie other than having thrown out Harley.
Most, if not all, of the movie will take place inside Harley's mind.
The teaser poster is an image of Harley with herself and the other main characters surrounding her head Circling Birdies-style, coupled with the tagline "Mind over Mayhem," and Harley herself is well-known for being comic-book-style insane. Taken together, those three elements are somewhat suspicious in regards to things not being as they seem. This could also be a way to account for the brighter and relatively garish cinematography and production design compared to Suicide Squad. Cassandra will be Cassandra Cain In Name Only
She'll talk without issue, act totally differently than canon, and not have her signature fighting style. Instead, she'll be Harley's sassy, punk rap obsessed ward constantly getting into mischief and pretending to be a "gangsta from da hood, yo!".- ...This is oddly specific. In any case,even if Cassandra's personality is different in this film, she could undergo Character Rerailment upon meeting Batman.
- Personally, she struck me as being more like Stephanie Brown than Cassandra Cain.
- Hoo boy... confirmed, to the universal irritation of the character's fans.
Harley's hyena will die.
It'll be killed by Roman's men, pushing Harley over the edge and giving her another reason to take the Black Mask down.- Jossed. Though she believes this at first and it is indeed caught up in the explosion, it is shown to have survived and was wandering around Chinatown
The Joker is dead at the start of the movie.
He never survived the ending of Suicide Squad. The song used on the trailer is from a biopic of a singer who had a lover she was in a scandalous relationship with who died. ...In a plane crash.- Jossed. He is alive but he broke up with her.
Huntress will kill Zsasz early in the movie
- Well, the second trailer kinda spoiled it for us by having Harley explicitly say that Huntress just killed Black Mask's BFF, and considering how chummy Roman and Zsasz seem in other promo material...
- Jossed. She does kill Zsasz but near the end of the film.
Post-Release
Harley at the end was saying...
- Batman fucked Catwoman/Talia al Ghul/Huntress. Whoever his lover was, she is now pregnant, and will soon give birth to Damien, Helena, or a Canon Foreigner child.
Batman was busy with the Joker.
The Joker is so feared even Roman Sionis wouldn't harm Harley until he's sure the Clown Prince of Crime wouldn't retaliate so Batman deemed him a priority over his Evil Former Friend. Batman was busy doing Justice League work.
Alternatively, that's the reason he didn't show up. The Penguin will become the next Big Bad of Gotham.
With Roman Sionis dead, Oswald Cobblepot will take over his club and rename it "Ice Lounge". This universe's David Cain isn't an assassin, but a thief
Instead of training his daughter to fight, he taught her how to steal things so she'd be an accomplice to his crimes Birds of Prey is concurrent with The Batman
The reason why Batman wasn't involved is that he was tangling with Penguin and Riddler at the time. Roman Sionis will return in a future DCEU film.
Sionis survived the grenade explosion, but left him with a disfigured face and Body Horror. Given his shallowness and ego, he will wear the black mask full time, which would make it easy to cast another actor if Ewan isn't up for it.- Well, there are rumors that Ewan's Black Mask will appear at some point in Matt Reeves' Batman trilogy, but since those films are meant as a prequel to the DCEU (kinda), there'll be no need to explain how or if he survived the explosion.
- In response to both this WMG and the one above it, Matt Reeves' Batman movie has now been confirmed as being set within its own contiuity, no connection to the DCEU.
Amanda Waller is also after Harley Quinn
We don't see it in the movie, but Waller's people are out looking for Harley and Joker. She is still angry about the night Harley escaped from the Suicide Squad. Not only thugs and mobsters are after her, but government agents too. The Cass we see in this movie had her memories altered
Cass has the same or similar backstory as she does in the comics, but someone prior to the film's start gave her Fake Memories, with a couple different options as to who and why:- Maybe one of her parents did it to keep her away from the other, since they're known to be at odds with each other in the comics.
- Maybe a third party stole her away and hid her in Gotham, either for altruistic reasons or because they wanted to come back and exploit her skillset later.
- Maybe she's a brainwashed sleeper agent, but the events of the film interrupted her before she could complete her mission.
- Maybe they'll do something similar to the MCU's Mandarin retcon. This girl is not Cassandra Cain, at least, not the Cassandra Cain who is David Cain's daughter/assassin-in-training, she's a different person altogether. Maybe BOP Cass is using a fake name (which would honestly fit in pretty well), or maybe it's her real one by coincidence. And before anyone brings up how that would be confusing, remember, this is DC. We've got two Wally Wests running around for a similar reason.
Doc will return in a different DCEU film.
As Doc betrayed Harley to have a new, better life somewhere else, he'll have his new restaurant in a future film as a background joke/call back. Bonus joke points if it becomes a running gag of the restaurant being destroyed whenever it appears. The sleazy pet store owner abused Bruce
- Think about it: most of the time he acts pretty much just like a dog and isn't aggressive. Furthermore, when he "dies" and is later found wandering the streets of Gotham, he didn't eat anyone as far as we know. Yet he attacks the owner when given half a chance. Perhaps he was abusive to Bruce and it was a case of The Dog Bites Back.
- Why would Bruce try to eat people when there's easier food just lying there in trash cans, or even in stores or peoples' houses, and animals like cats or pigeons to hunt?? No animal except polar bears default to hunting or attacking humans and mostly try to stay out of our way like all other animals.
The man who saved Helena wasn't fully aware of what was going to happen the day the Bertinellis were killed
- The flashback scene shows that not only he and the younger Helena knew each other already (he may have been her bodyguard), they were very friendly with each other. Beside the likeliness that he was forced to comply at risk of being killed himself, he may have not thought Galante's takeover would end in blooshed or, at the very least, that Galante would stoop as low as having even the kids gunned down. That he in fact gave Helena what she needed to get her revenge further suggest he was never in with the idea of her being killed.
Sequel Theories
There will be a Spin-Off Series on Birds of Prey
Since Dinah, Helena, and are using the money they have to join forces to officially form the titular team. This might foreshadow that there will be a spin-off series on Birds of Prey.