Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn

It's been reported all over the net that Margot Robbie has been cast as Harley Quinn for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.
Good or bad choice?

AJF wrote: It's been reported all over the net that Margot Robbie has been cast as Harley Quinn for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.
Good or bad choice?

I do kind of think that the suicide squad is kind of a backdoor effort to get a Harley Quinn on the screen, and maybe see if she can do her own movie(she is right now one of the most popular modern characters). So this makes sence.

As for the choice? Harley is a tricky character as when done well shes a cartoony villian whoses just likable enough to be an antihero-which is hard balance to find for an actress. It requires immense dumb energy, but at the same time a kind of revelation that maybe she is smarter then she looks.

but Robbi did a good job in Wolf of Wall Street , a movie thats' kind of the same thing when you think about it. She looks pretty enough, and shes good at suggesting with her eyes a story.

That said-i do think Suicide Squad is one of my favorite all time comics, i also think it maybe tricky to do on screen. Harley Quinn is a character that is very dependent on Writing to work well-she can be done a number of ways from SAW to chibi and if they find the wrong match it could go real badly-but i am curious now to see what its about.

variety.com/2014/film/news/suicide-squad...deadshot-1201368867/

The rest of the cast

Of intrest to genre fans is Cara Delevinge as the Enchantress- an actress i am not all that familiar with. Curious to see how the character is done in live action, and how a movie deals with magic in the DC universe. Could be neat. not the character i would have expected to go with.

Also of course Will Smith is Playing Deadshot. Not sure about that one-hes a character thats all about Restrained not very talkativeness-which is not something i associate with Smith when hes good. But will curious. I am curiously optomistic about this.

Castor .

Casting is the anchor that slows (or ruins) so many comic-based movies and shows. You mention Will Smith... he was outstanding in Hancock because they could make the character fit him, and not the other way around. But in the comics-derived movies, it's really impossible. Half the people (and only half if you are lucky) will think any actor or script is completely wrong.

We just have to hope it winds up in a direction this group of folks can appreciate. We are fairly diverse in our interests and likes here in SWM, but not NEARLY as diverse as the public at large. The danger is always that the studios perception of what all those "civilians' want is quite different from ours.

I think MOS heavily overlapped our interests (although most of us would have made Faora a lot more kickass), but with all these new shows and movies, there are going to be some big train wrecks when it comes to serving our audience. I'm just hoping for one or two where they get it mostly right.

As far as train wrecks go, Margot Robbie as Harley feels like one of them, and so does Will Smith's role. Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

Shadar

castor wrote: variety.com/2014/film/news/suicide-squad...deadshot-1201368867/

The rest of the cast

Of intrest to genre fans is Cara Delevinge as the Enchantress- an actress i am not all that familiar with. Curious to see how the character is done in live action, and how a movie deals with magic in the DC universe. Could be neat. not the character i would have expected to go with.

Also of course Will Smith is Playing Deadshot. Not sure about that one-hes a character thats all about Restrained not very talkativeness-which is not something i associate with Smith when hes good. But will curious. I am curiously optomistic about this.

Castor .

It goes to the nature of careers

Will Smith is a very talented actor. Since the beggining of his career he has taken a lot of roles that challenge people-see Six Degrees of Seperation. However his first real role as an actor was the Fresh Prince-this sassy street smart but good hearted dude who is a little over his head but basically means well.

And hes made a couple of billion dollars in movies playing that role. Men in Black, Hanckock, plenty of others this is what he does.

And when ever hes not played that role-in movies like say Wild Wild West(his first big bomb when he tried to push it more into ashole), After Earth, of Seven Pounds...welll its mostly failed. Audiences have stayed away in droves.

And i bet he knows this.

There is a story that he turned down the lead in Django Unchained becuse he wanted to kill the bad guy, and do it at the end of the movie instead. I kind of think that may have been a better choice--but its a diffrent choice then what the director wanted, and the director got his way.

Don't think he a director could do that here.

Its funny. When they first talked about Sucide Squad a year ago, they did so in the context of-hey this is going to be a little low budget action movie(well 50 million but give em some slack)-hey we can really take the DC universe in some intresting directions. Though it was never said, i think the assumption this would be an R rated action movie.

The Sucide Squad for those unfamiliar, was defined in the 80s as a team of Criminals who the goverment was giving a pardon in exchange for taking missions that they thought sucides-thus the name. Its an incredibly brutal book, even by 80s standards. Characters died about once every couple of issue. And its not funny. Sucide Squad was best generally when it played itself pretty serious-the characters where supervillians, who often hated each other-but well had to work together.

In that book it was easy to argue that Deadshot was the star. I would argue hes one of my top 10 favorite comic characters. Hes a B list batman villain who got reserected around 1980 after one appearence in the 40s as a sniper who killed for money. He was a taciturn gruff loaner who never talked much, didn't have had much of a moral code-except when he did. The Story of most Sucide Squad books is him working up to doing the right thing even if he wouldn't usally admit it.

This doesn't sound like a typical Will Smith role. And it is possible that He will want to play Deadshot like he is in the comics-werid costume that covers his face and all. But i don't think so. I suspect the script is going to be rewriten around him if it hasn't already.

Which is one of the shames-cause this doesn't sound like a 50 million dollar little experimental movie-this sounds and probabbly is a rip off of guardians of the galaxy, a movie that left me a little cold. Its a movie that they setup as Dark-but isn't, which is okay for guardians as guardians the comic isn't always a comedy but is never bleak. Sucide Squad is pretty bleak. And this sounds a little bleak to me.

Becuse i liked the idea of Warner Brothers doing a little superhero movie-but well agian no Dc has a tremendious library of stuff to go on for that--but i don't think where going to see it. .

But you know what i could be wrong on that. Margie Robie is fine as Harley(she doesn't have that long a career to drag her down)-Jared Leto i suspect is going to be a cameo but sure. Tom Hardy is a good actor who plays unlikable as-holes like nobodies business as are the other names. There could be something here and its not fair to judge a movie this early...but ...

While I haven't seen 'Wolf of Wall Street' yet, Ms. Robbie seems a bit too glamorous to play Harley for me. Of course, actors do incredible jobs with roles that most don't think they're suited for all the time (Michael Keaton in Batman), bu for me, this seems like trying to cast the bi or popular name, rather than the right actor. It's a problem that DC constantly has, I think. Also, consider that for the role of Amanda Waller, Oprah Winfrey is supposedly the front-runner.

And the bad thing about all this is that DC already has access to some tremendous acting talent that know the roles, just not as big name. Tara Strong is Harley in 'Arrow' and has been the voice of the character in animation and video games after taking over for Arleene Sorkin. And the very talented CCH Pounder both looks the part and has voiced Amanda Waller. Both of these actresses know the characters, they just aren't big names in comparison.

It just all goes to the belief of myself and a lot of others that DC wants to rush in without a strong plan instead of building up the foundation like Marvel did.

I like the cast. My only minor concern is if Will Smith is too big of an actor to cast in a team movie? Meaning, is the entire script going to be rewritten to revolve around the character of Deadshot while the other members are relegated to the sidelines?

I certainly don't think so but it could happen. We'll just have to see.

Oh, and for those of you who keep saying DC is "rushing it" or "Why don't they do what Marvel did?". Please remember that if they did everything exactly like Marvel people would be complaining that WB/DC was "just copying Marvel". There are many different ways to introduce a movie universe and they've chosen this one. Can't we just be glad that some of our favorite comic book characters (including some superheroines) are coming to life?

Lots of great thoughts being expressed in this threat. Whenever I start to get negative about someone's upcoming role (like I am with Margot), I have to remind myself that I once felt the same way about Charlize Theron. Yet she astounded me with her range and courage in tackling varied roles. She continues to do so.

Charlize didn't get too big for her britches, so to speak, even when she hit the A-list. She's played so many good roles, including the supporting role in Hancock where she hit a home run for this genre. Beating up Will Smith while using a semi-truck as a club was pretty cool, not to mention tossing him through the refrigerator (and then calmly walking out to the driveway to retrieve some eggs from the mangled refrigerator to make breakfast for her family).

And we can't forget Monster, where one of the most beautiful women on the planet (both body and mind) managed to convince us she was one of the ugliest.

Maybe Margot will follow in her footsteps. We can hope.

jdrock24 wrote: I like the cast. My only minor concern is if Will Smith is too big of an actor to cast in a team movie? Meaning, is the entire script going to be rewritten to revolve around the character of Deadshot while the other members are relegated to the sidelines?

I certainly don't think so but it could happen. We'll just have to see.

Oh, and for those of you who keep saying DC is "rushing it" or "Why don't they do what Marvel did?". Please remember that if they did everything exactly like Marvel people would be complaining that WB/DC was "just copying Marvel". There are many different ways to introduce a movie universe and they've chosen this one. Can't we just be glad that some of our favorite comic book characters (including some superheroines) are coming to life?

But if it comes at the cost of quality, as WB/DC has shown they are willing to sacrifice, then does it really matter that they got the movie made?

Green Lantern was horrible. Superman Returns validated most of the jokes Kevin Smith had been telling for 10 years about being involved in the process to bring Superman back to the movie theaters. They could have had Joss Wheedon directing a Wonder Woman film, but lost him because they were insisting on doing stunt casting for Diana (from Megan Fox to Bollywood actresses). Even Man of Steel had serious flaws that made the movie unpopular with a large swath of fans. And while I agree that Will Smith is a huge action star that could knock it out of the park, I'm all for greater diversity in comics and film but a big part of why he was cast is probably so that they can bring in the 'Captain Boomerang is a racist' angle that's been around in the comics for years now, not because he's going to be the best actor for Deadshot. Compare this with Marvel Studio's track record from Iron Man onwards.(Note:X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man films are out of the control of Marvel Studios)

The biggest issue to any DC film achieving Marvel-levels of success is the executives at WB. They are heavy micro-managers that ruin films with stunt castings and logic like 'The Batman movies are a success! Why? Because they're dark and brooding. If we want Superman to be a success, we need that film to be dark and brooding too, obviously'. DC is hampered by the fact that the creative process is being overwritten by people who have no-creativity, but total control of the money. The exceptions come when you have a more powerful creator, like Christopher Nolan, that can tell the studio to get off the set and just stay in the board room signing checks.

Compare this to Marvel, which has a very non-intrusive executive board that's controlled by John Lassiter (of Pixar fame). Disney knows to let creators be creators and that the money-men just need to stay out of the process aside from making sure the project is funded.

So, the bottom line for me is: can Margot Robbie be a great Harley? Maybe, but DC's track record leaves me with heavy doubts that she's going to be right for the part. Another possibility is that she's great for Harley, but gets totally unused due to WB's meddling and/or terrible directing (see Angela Bassett in Green Lantern)

ArgentDragon wrote:

jdrock24 wrote: I like the cast. My only minor concern is if Will Smith is too big of an actor to cast in a team movie? Meaning, is the entire script going to be rewritten to revolve around the character of Deadshot while the other members are relegated to the sidelines?

I certainly don't think so but it could happen. We'll just have to see.

Oh, and for those of you who keep saying DC is "rushing it" or "Why don't they do what Marvel did?". Please remember that if they did everything exactly like Marvel people would be complaining that WB/DC was "just copying Marvel". There are many different ways to introduce a movie universe and they've chosen this one. Can't we just be glad that some of our favorite comic book characters (including some superheroines) are coming to life?

But if it comes at the cost of quality, as WB/DC has shown they are willing to sacrifice, then does it really matter that they got the movie made?

Green Lantern was horrible. Superman Returns validated most of the jokes Kevin Smith had been telling for 10 years about being involved in the process to bring Superman back to the movie theaters. They could have had Joss Wheedon directing a Wonder Woman film, but lost him because they were insisting on doing stunt casting for Diana (from Megan Fox to Bollywood actresses). Even Man of Steel had serious flaws that made the movie unpopular with a large swath of fans. And while I agree that Will Smith is a huge action star that could knock it out of the park, I'm all for greater diversity in comics and film but a big part of why he was cast is probably so that they can bring in the 'Captain Boomerang is a racist' angle that's been around in the comics for years now, not because he's going to be the best actor for Deadshot. Compare this with Marvel Studio's track record from Iron Man onwards.(Note:X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man films are out of the control of Marvel Studios)

The biggest issue to any DC film achieving Marvel-levels of success is the executives at WB. They are heavy micro-managers that ruin films with stunt castings and logic like 'The Batman movies are a success! Why? Because they're dark and brooding. If we want Superman to be a success, we need that film to be dark and brooding too, obviously'. DC is hampered by the fact that the creative process is being overwritten by people who have no-creativity, but total control of the money. The exceptions come when you have a more powerful creator, like Christopher Nolan, that can tell the studio to get off the set and just stay in the board room signing checks.

Compare this to Marvel, which has a very non-intrusive executive board that's controlled by John Lassiter (of Pixar fame). Disney knows to let creators be creators and that the money-men just need to stay out of the process aside from making sure the project is funded.

So, the bottom line for me is: can Margot Robbie be a great Harley? Maybe, but DC's track record leaves me with heavy doubts that she's going to be right for the part. Another possibility is that she's great for Harley, but gets totally unused due to WB's meddling and/or terrible directing (see Angela Bassett in Green Lantern)

I agree with you about Green Lantern and Superman Returns. Those movies were terrible and should never be seen by anyone ever again. And you are probably right that the meddling of WB executives had a hand in their failure. I hear that Green Lantern really had problems in this area.

Where I will disagree with you is on Man of Steel. I really do not understand the flack it gets from some fans. I honestly thought it was great and am excited to see where they go with the DCCU. Funny thing, some people complain that the same WB execs you chastised above let Snyder have too free of a reign with that movie and should have exerted more control. The exact opposite of your contention.

The bottom line is that I think WB learned their lessons from the Green Lantern and Superman Returns failures and are now on the right track. I'm not going to trash everything they do just because Marvel has a better recent track record. I remain hopeful that both companies will continue to put out quality movies.

The big winners in that scenario will be us, the fans.

Definitely not a Will Smith fan. He's the definition of a one-note actor as far as I'm concerned. I'm not worried though, he doesn't have enough star power any more to be his usual camera-hog self.
I finally caught Wolf Of Wall Street. (It's on Netflix now) Margot Robbie is quite the actress, I have a good feeling she'll pull it off!

jdrock24 wrote:

ArgentDragon wrote:

jdrock24 wrote: I like the cast. My only minor concern is if Will Smith is too big of an actor to cast in a team movie? Meaning, is the entire script going to be rewritten to revolve around the character of Deadshot while the other members are relegated to the sidelines?

I certainly don't think so but it could happen. We'll just have to see.

Oh, and for those of you who keep saying DC is "rushing it" or "Why don't they do what Marvel did?". Please remember that if they did everything exactly like Marvel people would be complaining that WB/DC was "just copying Marvel". There are many different ways to introduce a movie universe and they've chosen this one. Can't we just be glad that some of our favorite comic book characters (including some superheroines) are coming to life?

But if it comes at the cost of quality, as WB/DC has shown they are willing to sacrifice, then does it really matter that they got the movie made?

Green Lantern was horrible. Superman Returns validated most of the jokes Kevin Smith had been telling for 10 years about being involved in the process to bring Superman back to the movie theaters. They could have had Joss Wheedon directing a Wonder Woman film, but lost him because they were insisting on doing stunt casting for Diana (from Megan Fox to Bollywood actresses). Even Man of Steel had serious flaws that made the movie unpopular with a large swath of fans. And while I agree that Will Smith is a huge action star that could knock it out of the park, I'm all for greater diversity in comics and film but a big part of why he was cast is probably so that they can bring in the 'Captain Boomerang is a racist' angle that's been around in the comics for years now, not because he's going to be the best actor for Deadshot. Compare this with Marvel Studio's track record from Iron Man onwards.(Note:X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man films are out of the control of Marvel Studios)

The biggest issue to any DC film achieving Marvel-levels of success is the executives at WB. They are heavy micro-managers that ruin films with stunt castings and logic like 'The Batman movies are a success! Why? Because they're dark and brooding. If we want Superman to be a success, we need that film to be dark and brooding too, obviously'. DC is hampered by the fact that the creative process is being overwritten by people who have no-creativity, but total control of the money. The exceptions come when you have a more powerful creator, like Christopher Nolan, that can tell the studio to get off the set and just stay in the board room signing checks.

Compare this to Marvel, which has a very non-intrusive executive board that's controlled by John Lassiter (of Pixar fame). Disney knows to let creators be creators and that the money-men just need to stay out of the process aside from making sure the project is funded.

So, the bottom line for me is: can Margot Robbie be a great Harley? Maybe, but DC's track record leaves me with heavy doubts that she's going to be right for the part. Another possibility is that she's great for Harley, but gets totally unused due to WB's meddling and/or terrible directing (see Angela Bassett in Green Lantern)

I agree with you about Green Lantern and Superman Returns. Those movies were terrible and should never be seen by anyone ever again. And you are probably right that the meddling of WB executives had a hand in their failure. I hear that Green Lantern really had problems in this area.

Where I will disagree with you is on Man of Steel. I really do not understand the flack it gets from some fans. I honestly thought it was great and am excited to see where they go with the DCCU. Funny thing, some people complain that the same WB execs you chastised above let Snyder have too free of a reign with that movie and should have exerted more control. The exact opposite of your contention.

The bottom line is that I think WB learned their lessons from the Green Lantern and Superman Returns failures and are now on the right track. I'm not going to trash everything they do just because Marvel has a better recent track record. I remain hopeful that both companies will continue to put out quality movies.

The big winners in that scenario will be us, the fans.

I agree with you, JD. I thought "Man of Steel" was a good movie. For me, the Batman franchise, directed by Christopher Nolan, was a Batman that was believable, emotional, and intense all because the villain casting was almost perfect. I truly believe that the villain defines the hero and Micheal Shannon, IMO, nailed it.

I think that DC is taking more time, after the early failures, to really find their place. As someone above mentioned, if they'd have gone the Marvel route everyone would have said they were copy-cats.

On a side note: I believe that the collateral damage from Superman's fight with Zod is one of the main contentions Batman will have going into Dawn of Justice, but I'm not 100% sure.