Gotham City Sirens Movie: Everything You Need To Know

With directors leaving The Flash every couple of weeks, early rumblings suggesting disappointment from Wonder Woman, and Ben Affleck departing The Batman's director's chair, things at DC and Warner Bros look very chaotic right now.

Harley Quinn has always been known to thrive in chaos, though, and the Joker's deranged other half seems to be doing just that at the moment. While other characters' films are struggling to get off the ground, Harley's prominence in the DC plans has risen exponentially.

Margot Robbie's clown-obsessed criminal will team up with iconic female baddies in Gotham City Sirens, a film that's on the fast track while other DC projects gestate in development hell. It's a testament to Robbie's performance in Suicide Squad that she's branching into her own vehicle here, whereas the future plans for Jared Leto's Joker are far less clear.

Some talent from Suicide Squad will return, with a few fresh faces added to the mix, suggesting that this (like the major tonal shift of Justice League) is another attempt from DC to correct course and get their universe on track.

Here's everything you need to know...

8. David Ayer Is Back…

2016 Getty Images

Despite the divisive nature of Suicide Squad, its writer-director David Ayer hasn't been thrown out by Warners and DC. The helmsman of Fury and End Of Watch will return to the DCEU to direct Gotham City Sirens, re-teaming with Robbie after shooting her big screen Harley Quinn debut.

Many loathed Suicide Squad, Ayer himself on Twitter recently, posted a very reflective monologue about the lessons he's learned from his first DC movie. If he could make Suicide Squad again, Ayer says he'd "engineer a more grounded story" and "give the characters the stories and plots they deserve next time. Real talk."

With any luck, Ayer will take these lessons on board and take care to deliver the best movie he can with Gotham City Sirens. But it seems the studio doesn't have infinite faith in him..

7. … But He's Not Writing The Script

Warner Bros.

Warners are willing to let Ayer behind the camera on another DC film, but they don't want him writing the script this time.

Instead of Ayer, Geneva Robertson-Dworet has been tasked with hashing out the script for Gotham City Sirens. She's a hot talent in Hollywood at the moment, who's also been tasked with writing the Tomb Raider reboot and Robert Downey Jnr's Sherlock Holmes 3. This is an unprecedented number of blockbusters for a writer to have on their plate at once; especially a writer who hasn't had a film in cinemas yet.

But that's what Robertson-Dworet is: a brand new writer on the scene that all the studios are fighting over. Hopefully that means she's got epic skills to bring to the table, and some fresh ideas to liven up the DCEU.

6. Margot Robbie Is Stepping Up To Exec Producer

Warner Bros. Pictures

Following a recent trend (Daniel Craig did it with Spectre and Ben Affleck is doing it now on The Batman), Margot Robbie won't just be the star of Gotham City Sirens - she'll also be involved behind the scenes as an executive producer.

Even though Ayer's Suicide Squad script was all over the place, it was clear in the finished film that Robbie really understood the character of Harley Quinn. As pre-transformation Harleen she was nervous and shy, and as the fully-fledged supervillain Harley she darted between comedic charm, outright nuttiness and pure, crazy love for Mr J.

It's hard to imagine anyone else playing the character on screen after witnessing Robbie's take. And her eye for Harley's idiosyncrasies will surely come in handy during production: part of her job could be ensuring that everyone stays on the same page, sticking to one vision for the character. That kind of focus was missing last time around, and could make all the different here.

5. It's Not The First Harley Script They've Worked On

DC Comics

Before settling on the Gotham City Sirens branding, DC had Christina Hodson (another up-and-coming female writer) working on a script entitled Birds Of Prey. According to The Wrap, it would've featured Harley alongside "multiple female heroes." Rumours inspired by comics suggested that Batgirl, Black Canary, Huntress and Katana could've all appeared.

It remains to be seen whether any ideas from Birds Of Prey will bleed into Gotham City Sirens. It would certainly be cool to see rival female factions on the big screen - iconic DC heroes and villains, with a conflicted Harley caught the middle. After saving the world in Suicide Squad, is there part of her that would rather help people than hurt them?

For now, the plot of the movie is a mystery, but it's probably wise to expect a female hero or two among the baddies...

4. The Joker And Batman Aren’t Confirmed

Warner Bros.

As it stands, the only actor listed on Gotham City Sirens' IMDb page is Margot Robbie herself.

Jared Leto's Joker has not been confirmed yet, but seems likely to show up in some capacity, even if it's just to explain why Harley is branching out on her own rather than hanging out with him after Suicide Squad. Some fans wanted more Leto last time, and others would've been happy if he was removed altogether - it'll be interesting to see how the powers-that-be respond to that.

Ben Affleck's Batman isn't attached yet, either. It would be odd for a film with Gotham in the title not to feature the city's most famous resident, but Batfleck is busy writing, starring in and producing his own DC film at the moment. Would he even have time to shoot a cameo?

3. Megan Fox Is Rumoured For Poison Ivy...

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Shortly after Gotham City Sirens was announced, Bleeding Cool posted a rumour: Megan Fox, they reckon, is circling the role of Poison Ivy. They had reasons to back it up, too. Apparently, Fox is a long-time comic book fan, which is why she previously signed on for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jonah Hex and Robot Chicken (in which she voices Lois Lane) and that the website had "been shown hard evidence that [Fox] has ordered pre-52 Harley Quinn comics that feature Poison Ivy, sent to her Warner Studios address."

Nobody at Warners responded to the rumour, though, so it remains just that for the time being.

There's no denying that Fox looks the part. And she's even played evil characters before, giving one of her best performances in the murderous lead role in Jennifer's Body. Red hair and green clothes is all she needs at this point.

2. … And Haley Bennett Could Be Catwoman

Universal Pictures

2016 was a big year of Haley Bennett - she sizzled in The Girl On The Train and provided the emotional core to The Magnificent Seven. But 2017 could be even bigger for her, with rumours persisting that her casting as Catwoman is soon to be confirmed.

Bennett has been teasing something along these lines on her Instagram account. She literally posted a picture of Catwoman, followed by evidence that she's had her hair cut short. Then she snapped a seafood dinner, and added the caption "Meow". And after that came a selfie, showing Bennett in a slinky all-black outfit. She's toying with DC fans at this point.

Margot Robbie, Megan Fox and Haley Bennett would make for a star-studded ensemble, that's for sure. Of course, it's worth reiterating that neither Fox or Bennett's casting is officially confirmed yet... but still, these are exciting times.

1. It Could Get Hot And Heavy

DC Comics

A romance between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy was brewing in the comics for ages (they lived together for a time, and the hints at a sexual relationship were fairly blatant), before DC's Twitter account confirmed in 2015 that "they are girlfriends without the jealousy or monogamy."

A year later, the comics acted on the innuendo and actually showed them being intimate. Finally, the iconic female villains locked lips in Bombshells issue #46.

"There are better things to do in the moonlight than dance", Harley said before the snog, riffing on Jack Nicholson's famous line from the 1989 Batman film. But will the moviemakers return the favour now, and refer to this relationship on the big screen? Could Harley and Ivy by the DCEU's first non-straight couple?

Gotham City Sirens would be the prime opportunity to explore this, given its focus on female characters and Harley branching out. Also, it's impossible to deny that some romance between sexy super-villains would get some bums on seats...

What do you want to see in Gotham City Sirens? Let us know in the comments below...

How Anime 'Your Name' Became an Unlikely Phenomenon

Courtesy of Toho

'Your Name' ('Kimi no Na wa')

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE 'YOUR NAME']

The low-budget Makoto Shinkai-directed megahit is now the highest-grossing Japanese film in history.

Makoto Shinkai's body-swapping, time-shifting anime Your Name may have missed out on an Oscar nomination, but it has been setting records both in Japan and overseas, single-handedly driving both the domestic film industry and studio-distributor Toho to record revenues last year. And it isn't finished yet.

Last weekend, Your Name (Kimi no Na wa) returned to the top of the box-office charts in Japan for the first time in nine weeks, on its 22nd weekend in theaters. While big films often have longer runs in Japan than in other major markets, regaining the top spot after more than two months and staying in the charts from August until the New Year is serious longevity, even by Japanese standards.

The last film to capture the hearts of Japanese cinemagoers to this extent was Disney's Frozen, on whose third-highest all-time local box office record Your Name is now closing in. Frozen spent 16 weeks atop the box office in 2014 — Your Name is currently at a total of 13 weeks — and finished with a quarter of a billion dollars (￥25.48 billion). As of last weekend, Your Name had taken in $233 million (￥23.56 billion) in Japan. (Converted at $1=￥101, the rate when Your Name was first released.)

The highest grossing film ever in Japan remains Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning Spirited Away (2002), which took ￥30.4 billion, or $300 million at the same rate used for Your Name, unadjusted for inflation. But thanks to Your Name's strong performance in Asia — it took more than $80 million in China and more than $20 million in South Korea — it has already surpassed Spirited Away to become the highest-earning Japanese film ever globally.

The massive success of Your Name is even more remarkable when taking into account that Shinkai's previous film (The Garden of Words) was released on just 23 screens; the story is complex; and it was written by the director rather than based on an existing property.

"Because The Garden of Words took only 150 million yen [$1.3 million], we thought no matter how hard we tried Your Name could only do 10 times that amount, so the production and promotion budgets were kept really low, smaller than an average Toho release," Genki Kawamura, the film's hit-maker producer, told The Hollywood Reporter in October.

Driven in large part by Your Name's massive success on a low budget, Toho's operating profit for its first three quarters jumped by 30 percent to a record $370 million (￥42.53 billion). The megahit also helped push the entire domestic box office to a record $2.09 billion (￥235.5 billion) in 2016.

"It was the young audiences that recognized the greatness of director Shinkai, spreading the news about the film at great speed on social media," said Toho CEO Yoshishige Shimatani at Tuesday's Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ) press conference to announce last year's box office numbers.

While the film's core audience has been teenagers, many of whom have seen it multiple times, the hype around it has pulled people of all ages into theaters, though some have struggled to follow the story's body-swapping and time-shifting elements.

"As it was an anime, I thought it would be kind of silly; I don't watch anime, I've never even seen one Miyazaki film. But the story of Your Name was really moving and actually made me cry," Hitomi Mizune, a Tokyo businesswoman in her 50s, told The Hollywood Reporter.

"The central ideas of fate and that there is a person you are somehow connected to and destined to meet are ones that Japanese people love. There have been a lot of films using those themes, but often in a cliched kind of way. They were handled very well in this film," said Mizune. "But my mother, who is 85, went to see it, and she couldn't understand the story, even after I'd explained it."

Aya Fuji, another Tokyoite, also pointed out that there had been similarly themed films in the past, but said the way Your Name depicted and developed the story made her feel it could happen to her. Fuji took her grade-school daughter to watch the film, but she found the story too complicated to follow.

An IMAX version of the film was released in Japan on Jan. 17, further boosting ticket sales. Meanwhile a dubbed English version — a rarity in Japan — will be in theaters for two weeks beginning Jan. 28.

Your Name will be released in the U.S., with dubbed and subtitled versions, from April 7.