The DC superhero movie universe is a very weird place right now, where charismatic mid-tier supervillain Harley Quinn is a bigger draw than Superman, and you’ve got two Jokers running around with no actual Batmen to stop them. Still, there are a few lights in the sky of a dying universe: Wonder Woman 1984 still has every promise of being excellent, and the upcoming Birds Of Prey movie has now announced that it’s putting together a pretty awesome cast.
Variety reports that Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jurnee Smollett-Bell have now both joined the roster of the 2020-aimed feature, playing Huntress and Black Canary, respectively. The pair will appear alongside Margot Robbie’s Harley, the unlikely glue holding together this movie, Suicide Squad, and the upcoming Jared Leto Joker flick.
Winstead has been a warm and interesting presence in any number of things, from 10 Cloverfield Lane to Fargo; she’ll presumably be hardening herself a bit to play Huntress, who’s a slightly nicer version of The Punisher (except with crossbows). Smollett-Bell, meanwhile, has built an increasingly impressive resumé for herself over the last few years starring on shows like True Blood and Underground, and taking a lead role in J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele’s upcoming HBO series Lovecraft Country. This is, in other words, a pretty excellent cast of performers, suggesting that, at the very least, DC and Warner Bros. might still be able to pump out some sporadically entertaining movies—even as their wider ambitions collapse.