Why Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn Spin-Off Is So Important

While Suicide Squad didn't get the best reviews, people were still excited about Margot Robbie's character Harley Quinn. After all, it's not that often we get to see any female superheroes — or super-villains — let alone complex, three-dimensional ones. So, appropriately, Harley is now getting her own movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Robbie just signed a deal with Warner Brothers for a Suicide Squad spin-off film centered on her character. She's also going to executive produce the movie and star in another Warners project, Queen of the Air. A myth persists in Hollywood that female superheroes can't bring people to the box office. Lionsgate once discarded the idea of a Black Widow movie, claiming that several of its other female-starring movies didn't perform well enough. But we have a lot of counterexamples to suggest otherwise. Catching Fire, the Hunger Games movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, was the highest-grossing film of 2013. And Divergent reached $250 million worldwide after just six weeks. The popularity of Suicide Squad was largely due to Harley Quinn and Margot Robbie, and as Warner Brothers recognizes, fans' enthusiasm for her is showing no signs of dying down. It seems like Marvel is coming around, too: The studio has cast Brie Larson to star in the 2019 film Captain Marvel. Now, if only someone would get on that Black Widow movie.