Birds of Prey, the forthcoming Harley Quinn spin-off movie, will entirely ignore Suicide Squad, its producer has confirmed.
The 2016 film introduced Margot Robbie in the role of Harley Quinn, but was otherwise maligned by critics at the time. As a result, Birds of Prey will not acknowledge its existence.
“It’s a standalone movie, it’s not connected to Suicide Squad,” producer Sue Kroll told ScreenRant. “It’s not a sequel, it’s not a continuation of that story.”
“It’s not related at all,” she continued, “so don’t try to apply linear logic to how the two go, because they don’t.”
Robbie previously told ScreenRant that she had struggled to understand the relationship between Harley and Jared Leto’s Joker in Suicide Squad. Birds of Prey begins with the pair having broken up.
“That was the thing that took me the longest to get my head around,” she said. “In this film though we’re exploring her not being with Joker. And I actually understand the break-up.
“That’s something I feel like everyone can kind of understand and relate to in some ways.”
Robbie will next reprise the Harley Quinn role in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which is being considered a soft reboot of the original film.
In October, it was claimed that Leto complained to Warner Bros after his own Joker spin-off movie stalled and Joaquin Phoenix was cast as a version of the character instead.
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) will be released in cinemas on 7 February, 2020.
