After skipping San Diego Comic-Con entirely back in July, Warner Bros. brought its upcoming slate of DC Comics films to Comic-Con Experience Brazil 2019, starting Thursday night with a panel focused on “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn).”
And along with appearances by stars Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Ella Jay Basco, plus director Cathy Yan, the packed auditorium was treated to exclusive new footage, including the film’s opening scene, and a new trailer featuring the first-ever look at the film’s villain in his costume.
In the opening scene, Harley Quinn (Robbie) explains her current relationship status — she recently kicked The Joker to the curb — while she goes on to burn a lot of bridges in service of reinventing herself in Gotham City.
“We broke up,” she narrates. “Mr. J was super broke up about it.” But, Harley continues, she’s got “an amazing new place that was all mine,” where she has “the space to reflect on the mistakes of my past.” But, this freed her up to become “a new me” she says, and “soon enough I was back on my feet, ready to make new friends.”
While Harley talks up her fresh start, we see her trademark pet hyenas, as well as a scene in which she rollerskates, then knocks people down. “This is the time for Gotham to meet the new Harley Quinn,” she continues as we see her steal an 18-wheeler and crash it into Ace Chemicals — AKA the plant that gave her and the Joker their bleached-white skin and crazy hair. Naturally, the plant blows up.
“It was the closure I needed” Harley says, as we see a massive, Joker-green explosion while she walks towards frame. The footage was followed by quick bumpers featuring the other Birds of Prey.
The new trailer began in a similar vein, with Harley narrating the “quick history lesson” that she and Joker broke up. That’s followed by footage of the villain Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) as we see him putting on the mask for his Black Mask persona. “It’s not a party without a little drama, right?” Roman asks while we see that his costume is pretty much straight out of the comics.
This is followed by an appearance by Huntress (Winstead), a little more Black Mask, and it closes with Harley’s voice over declaring “meet the new Harley Quinn.”
Cool stuff, but unfortunately for those of you not currently in brazil, the footage is exclusive to CCXP for now — though the new trailer will be released to the public in early 2020.
During the panel discussion, the stars and their director talked the film up and detailed some of how it came together. Some highlights:
Robbie explained that she “wanted to see more female ensembles on screen,” and that she first pitched the project while “Suicide Squad” was filming.
Smollett-Bell revealed that like the character’s comics counterpart, her version of Dina Lance/Black Canary will have full on superpowers — though whether or not Dina will be able to fly along with her signature sonic scream remains to be seen.
Perez noted that her character, Renee Montoya is “smarter than most of the men she works with,” and a “hardcore” who “doesn’t take any B.S.”
Basco meanwhile described her character, Cassandra Cain, as “a street girl, sneaky, a bit of a potty mouth, and the one who brings everyone together.”
In “Birds of Prey,” Robbie once again plays former Joker-accomplice Harley Quinn, now teaming up with Black Canary (Smollet-Bell ), Huntress (Winstead), and Renee Montoya (Perez) to stop the villain Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) before he can have Cassandra Cain (Basco) murdered. It hits theaters Feb. 7.