Once upon a time, David Ayer was set to play a pivotal role in the DCEU’s expansion. Long before Suicide Squad was even released, the filmmaker had signed on to tackle Gotham City Sirens, which was going to unite Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn with Poison Ivy and Catwoman for the franchise’s first female-centric spinoff.
Of course, once the critics laid into Ayer’s antihero ensemble piece after Warner Bros. had torn it apart and haphazardly stitched it back together in post-production, both the director and Gotham City Sirens sank into the abyss of development hell. Robbie managed to stick around, though, going on to produce and star in Birds of Prey instead, even if it did go on to bomb at the box office.
The Suicide Squad might be one of the DCEU’s best-reviewed movies, but it looks poised to flop hard after an underwhelming opening weekend, and the $185 million budget almost certainly won’t be recouped in theaters. James Gunn says he’d love to direct another solo outing for Harley, but he was recently forced to hop onto social media and debunk the rumors that he was planning to revive Gotham City Sirens, as you can see below.
Gunn is planning to keep playing in the shared universe for a while longer and Robbie has been vocal in her desire to bring the Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy dynamic into live-action, so it’s easy to understand how the speculation started. Then again, Gunn wouldn’t want to be known as the guy that exclusively picks up DCEU projects David Ayer used to be involved with, and he’s more than capable of crafting an entirely new story that allows Robbie to add even more new dimensions to the fan favorite character.