15 Perfect Superhero Casting Choices Wasted On Terrible Comic Book Movies

5. Margot Robbie As Harley Quinn - Suicide Squad

Birds Of Prey Harley Quinn
Warner Bros.

Fortunately for comic book fans Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn is set to return in next year's Birds of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan and casting Harley in a different light altogether. However, for all intents and purposes, it's absolutely fair to say that 2016's Suicide Squad wasted the character.

Robbie's casting as Harley marked the next big step for the character since their introduction in Batman: The Animated Series, with the former Joker sidekick moving from TV, to comics, to video games over the course of the previous decade. Suicide Squad would see her popularity skyrocket all over again, but to say that the film was solely responsible would be to ignore Robbie's contributions.

Boasting a new look courtesy of costume designer Kate Hawley, Robbie's Harley leaped off the screen and managed to perfectly embody the version first seen all the way back in 1992. Unfortunately she also had to deal with Jared Leto's Joker, as well as a script that seemingly managed to misread the abusive connotations of the pair's relationship.

There were other, obvious issues with Suicide Squad, but with Robbie due to feature in multiple DC films after Birds of Prey, it's clear the actor's performance won't be wasted for long.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.