'Birds of Prey' movie completely ignores 'Suicide Squad'

The Birds of Prey movie appears to be pretending that the Suicide Squad movie never happened.

Margot Robbie will be reprising her role of Harley Quinn in the DC spin-off, the former psychiatrist who in the comic books falls in love with the Joker and becomes his lover/accomplice.

In the final scenes of David Ayer's 2016 movie of Suicide Squad, Jared Leto's Joker breaks her out of prison.

Read more: Birds of Prey and Suicide Squad will be R-rated

But all that will be forgotten about, says the movie's producer Sue Kroll.

She told Screenrant: “It's a standalone movie, it's not connected to Suicide Squad. It's not a sequel, it's not a continuation of that story. So it has nothing to do with her break out of prison. But you're right, and we've been very upfront that this is about her emancipation.

“She and the Joker have broken up. This is her personal journey of discovery with these women. So it's not related at all, so don't try to apply linear logic to how the two go, because they don't.”

Kroll went on: “I don't think it has any similarities to Suicide Squad, except that we have Harley at the centre of it. I mean her character really is the one that popped out of Suicide Squad, so all of the amazing things that people embraced about her we have in our movie, and then some. We have this unique opportunity, right?

“So she's the thing that's the same, but other than that it's a standalone story. And uniquely its own.”

Though Ayer's Suicide Squad movie did big business at the box office, it got horrible reviews, with Jared Leto's Joker getting a fair amount of the flack.

Read more: The Suicide Squad ‘feels like a comedy’

A sequel is now on the way, The Suicide Squad helmed by James Gunn and also being described as a 'standalone' affair, which will feature Robbie's Harley Quinn too, along with Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag and Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, but notably not Leto's Joker.

He also won't be appearing in Birds of Prey (famously Leto did some pretty weird things in the name of ‘the method’ while on set, so perhaps this isn’t all that surprising).

Per the official synopsis: “Since the events of Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn has left the Joker. When Roman Sionis aka Black Mask, a narcissistic crime lord, places a hit on a young girl named Cassandra Cain, Gotham City turns upside down looking for her. Harley joins forces with Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya to protect the girl and to take Sionis down.”

Also starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco and Ewan McGregor, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is out on 7 February.