‘Birds Of Prey’ Almost Featured Penguin As Its Main Villain – Until Matt Reeves Called Dibs For ‘The Batman’
Talk about a close call – According to both Margot Robbie and Collin Farrell, had it not been for the last-minute intervention of The Batman director Matt Reeves, the disastrous Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) would have featured not Black Mask, but The Penguin as its central antagonist.
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The pair of DC cinematic veterans provided this glimpse into ‘the road not taken’ while speaking to Entertainment Weekly in promotion of their new fantasy romance film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (as in, a love story that runs up against ‘fantastical’ ideas rather than one taking place amidst a battlefield of orcs and elves).
Therein, amidst a longer conversation regarding their upcoming project, the pair found themselves suddenly questioning, as put by Robbie, if they had ever publicly discussed The Penguin’s short-lived feud with Harley Quinn.
Per a transcript of the exchange provided by EW:
Robbie: “Did we ever talk about Harley and the Penguin?”
Farrell: “I don’t believe so. (both laugh) I don’t think it came up once. No, we never mentioned, never spoke about it at all.”
Robbie: “We’ve done so much talking, and I don’t think we’ve ever [discussed that]. That’s so weird.”
Farrell: “[Both Harley and Penguin] exist in so many different universes and multiverses–“
Robbie, interjecting: “–The first draft that Christina [Hodson] wrote of Birds of Prey, the villain was the Penguin.”
Farrell, playfully sarcastic: “No way! Really?”
Robbie: “And then Matt Reeves said, ‘Don’t use the Penguin. I’m going to use him in my thing.’ And so we swapped it to Black Mask.”
Notably, it appears that Hodson’s version of The Penguin would have had no relation to Reeves’, as Farrell wrapped up this part of their discussion by asking Robbie for any details regarding the former’s unrealized version of Oswald Cobblepot:
Farrell: “Wow! And how was her Penguin?”
Robbie: “Amazing.”
Farrell: “Did you still have a copy of [that script]?”
Robbie: “Yeah, it’s probably on my computer. You could read it.”
Farrell: “Oh, good, I’d love to. That’d be so fascinating”.
Ultimately, it seems as if this last-minute change-up was beneficial to both The Penguin’s character, for whom an appearance in Birds of Prey would have undoubtedly led to the general public further writing off one of The Dark Knight’s most cutthroat foes as a bottom-tier joke, and audiences as a whole, who ended up getting the widely-liked The Batman and The Penguin HBO series out of the deal.
And though the cinematic universe that Birds of Prey calls home has officially come to an end, it seems as if Robbie’s take on Harley Quinn may end up making a Peacemaker-style jump to James Gunn’s DCU.
Asked by EW about the possibility during the Superman press tour, Gunn offered the non-committal answer of “”That will be revealed down the line.” – which isn’t an outright confirmation, but one would assume that if it wasn’t in the cards, the DC Studios co-CEO would have just said so.
All in all, at present the future of Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Farrell’s Cobblepot and even Reeves’ The Batman Part II, is currently up in the air, as neither character having yet been confirmed for another project and the film’s production has been moving along at a Penguin’s waddle.
