It always sucks when something that’s pretty good and was clearly well made just doesn’t hit the way it seems like it should’ve. This is particularly true when it comes to movies; think of a film you saw that was surprisingly enjoyable and how it didn’t really get a fair shake for whatever reason.
Plenty of examples come to mind for me, but one of the first is Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. Originally released on February 7, 2020 under its initial (and funnier) title, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the film’s a bit of a tangled knot. You may remember it first seemed like a solo vehicle for Margot Robbie’s Harley post-Suicide Squad 2016, then somewhere along the line, it also may have become something for the popular, usually women-starring B-list superhero team, and then ended up being…kind of both?
Maybe an odd hybrid is always what it was fated to be, since the DCEU had a weird air about it post-Joss Whedon’s Justice League, and it seemed Warner Bros. decided to just let these movies do their own thing. Aquaman and the original Shazam are clear examples of that freedom, but they came with less substantial baggage than Harley, whose main title character was mid-transformation into a big name solo brand during the 2010s. After spending most of her lifetime as Joker’s girlfriend (and sometimes Poison Ivy’s ahem, roommate), DC decided Harley could start being her own person outside of her paramour’s sometimes exhausting orbit.
And what makes you find yourself again like a breakup? Whatever else you can say about Birds of Prey, it’s clearly having a ball letting Harley grieve, then get over her pretty explosive split with Joker. There’ve been plenty of franchise movies that’ve functioned as soft reboots, but not quite in this way where Robbie’s giving 110% into being Harley as she comes into her own while fending off a laundry list of people she pissed off under her ex’s protection and are now looking to settle some scores. For as much as WB has tried to distance itself from some of the earlier DCEU films, the first Suicide Squad movie has left a long shadow casting-wise, with Robbie and fellow co-stars Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman getting to stick around longer than most stars under James Gunn’s new creative regime. Even Will Smith’s Deadshot has left a mark on Squad-adjacent media, despite not having shown up in the movies in nearly a full decade.
When all’s said and done, Robbie’s Harley is the most everlasting character of the DCEU, and her casting is arguably up there alongside the late Arleen Sorkin in terms of her importance to the harlequin’s history. Let’s face it, Harley probably wouldn’t have her own ongoing show or feature prominently in several major video games if not for her live-action outings.
But good onscreen presence and chemistry with an equally good cast can only take you so far, and in Birds of Prey’s case, it didn’t go far. The film was released shortly after the covid-19 pandemic was declared an international public emergency, which left movie theaters and studios scrambling to figure out what to do. WB opted to put the film on VOD a month after release, but the film was damaged even before that: along with general ol’ misogyny at a woman-fronted superhero flick, folks had been burned by DC movies too many times, and the first title might’ve been a bit much. Worse, it landed just ahead of Sonic the Hedgehog, which won audiences over once its online fanbase bullied the filmmakers into a more faithful redesign. Things weren’t exactly in its favor, which is something of a trend with every handful of superhero movies this decade—for every The Batman or Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s two or three Blue Beetles or The Marvels that got burned by universe (or its own genre’s) troubles.
The initial days of the pandemic broke the movie system, and that pain is still felt, even now. After Birds, WB opted to split the difference by giving its movies simultaneous releases in theaters and its then-new streaming service HBO Max. While understandable at the time, and gave movies like Wonder Woman 1984 and the 2021 Mortal Kombat some streaming bragging rights, it also pissed off several filmmakers. Christopher Nolan, dissatisfied with the lack of filmmaker input in this decision, famously ended his longtime partnership with the company and jumped over to Universal, where Oppenheimer became a box office success and anticipation builds for his take on The Odyssey in 2026. Audiences have returned to theaters in recent years, but studios still play some underhanded tricks, like insultingly short (and underpromoted) theatrical windows or canceling already finished movies.
In some ways, Birds of Prey was lucky to hit in 2020 and avoid a potentially worse fate as WB seemed on the verge of active collapse. Even so, it’s hard to not want better for it—its gleefully violent energy remains as fun now as it did then, and its characters all bounce off each other so well, you can’t help but want more of their misadventures. As is, it’s an interesting cultural artifact because of how it came about and lived… and also a great ad for bodegas and breakfast egg sandwiches.
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