When Jurnee Smollett debuted as Black Canary in 2020’s Birds of Prey, the role was immediately received with ubiquitous praise for her bold portrayal of the comic book antihero. Talk soon began to abound regarding a spin-off project focusing solely on the superhero. While the debut movie centered around the emancipation of Harley Quinn, it also brought to light the lesser-known (although fabulously qualified) female characters of DC.
Following up on the tail end of that project, Smollett’s journey as the Black Canary is currently not only a requirement but a necessity for the expansion of the DCU and to substantially increase the setlist of characters that could go on to play influential parts in Zaslav’s broader narrative to come.
Jurnee Smollett’s Journey as Black Canary in the DCEU
It has been a long while since this much talk of DC has occupied the modern landscape of film and television series. With the rebranding, restructuring, and orientation of the late DCEU under David Zasav, James Gunn, and Peter Safran, the franchise has received a facelift as well as fresh minds to architect the corporal expanse of the DC Films characters. Among them, the Jurnee Smollett-led Black Canary movie has been a long time coming.
Also read: Birds of Prey‘s Jurnee Smollett Wants to do Black Canary TV Series
While out and about for the promotion of the 2022 sci-fi thriller, Spiderhead, Jurnee Smollett had been enthusiastic about the possibility of reprising her role as Dinah Lance in a solo Black Canary outing under DC’s umbrella.
“I’m just so incredibly excited about a number of things that I can’t talk about. I mean, I’m excited, that’s what I can say. I’m excited about getting to explore a lot… I feel like we’ve only touched the surface with Black Canary. And she’s one of the dopest martial artists in the DC Universe. That is something that is a real challenge in my head that I’m just excited at the possibility of being able to explore deeper and further and wider and greater.”
Also read: Gail Simone Wants To Write A Black Canary Spin-Off Movie
David Zaslav’s strict and ambitious slashing of projects and focused approach to DC hadn’t yet taken root at the time of the interview. Smollett’s excitement could then be chalked up to behind-the-scenes progress with her solo movie which has been in the developmental stages under the care of scriptwriter Misha Green.
Fans React to James Gunn-Jurnee Smollett’s Twitter Activity
Announced in August 2021 as an exclusive HBO Max movie, Black Canary was set to get into production by 2022 at the latest. However, the merger of April 2022 had put a halt to numerous in-development projects and the current appointment of James Gunn and Peter Safran as the co-chairs of DC Films has seen a shift in the momentum of these halted plans.
Recent Twitter activity indicates that Gunn and Smollett have followed each other on the online platform, thus igniting rumors of the revival of the Black Canary movie.
James Gunn and Jurnee Smollett have followed each other. 👀 pic.twitter.com/xPS471IWsO
— Home of DCU (@homeofdcu) November 9, 2022
Gunn has already put a reference to Green Arrow in Peacemaker, so it's possible that he wants to adapt his romance with canary.
— Hotty_Venom🇪🇺🇮🇹🎃 (@Lorenzo74209291) November 9, 2022
It's sweet and intriguing how anything that Gunn does is a theory to something big coming.
— !srael (he/him) (@Isra3lit) November 9, 2022
Welp, there goes my hopes for Black Canary…
— Thee Useless Individual (@3nd_m3_plz) November 9, 2022
However, the flip side of the debate about the coming of Black Canary takes a look at the darker side of things. Given the updated condition of the DCU and Zaslav’s concentrated focus on all major Justice League superhero films, smaller shows such as these could easily get lost in the formative conversations about world-building. As such, Jurnee Smollett recently revealed that she doesn’t have any updates about the movie — “I can’t even confirm or deny what you just said” — when asked about Black Canary‘s progress in an episode of The Cut’s In Her Shoes podcast.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Twitter
