Ewan McGregor

Now that ‘Birds of Prey’ has found its Black Canary and Huntress, the time has come to find the film’s villain.  In the movie, Black Canary and Huntress will team up with Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie) as well as Gotham City police detective Renee Montoya to protect a young girl, Cassandra Cain, from the movie’s antagonist, Batman rogue Black Mask.

According to Variety’s Justin Kroll, director Cathy Yan has her eye on a pair of candidates to portray Black Mask– Ewan McGregor and Sharlto Copley.

Sam Rockwell was reportedly offered this role and passed.

It seems that meetings for the role have just begun, so it may be a minute before anyone is actually cast.  And although McGregor and Copley are specifically named, it is unknown whether or not either has met with Warner Bros. regarding this project.  For all we know, at this point, the role could go to anyone.

McGregor, however, recently starred on Season Three of FX’s ‘Fargo’ along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, so he has that going for him.  He is due to film ‘Doctor Sleep’ soon, with that Stephen King adaptation set to arrive in theaters on January 24, 2020.  He also has two more films in the pipeline, ‘The Land of Sometimes’ and ‘The Cow’, so it may be tricky to wrangle him for ‘Birds of Prey’.

As for Copley, he is a frequent collaborator with Neill Blomkamp, having starred in his films ‘District 9’, ‘Chappie’, and ‘Elysium’.  He has also appeared in ‘Old Boy’, ‘Maleficent’, ‘Hardcore Henry’ and ‘Gringo’.  He portrayed Christian Walker on the adaptation of the comic book series ‘Powers’ which was available on the Playstation Network, which no one has ever heard of, much less subscribed to.  It was also available on Crackle, which… yeah, same issue.

‘Birds of Prey’ will be directed by Cathy Yan with a script by Christina Hodson.  So far, the only known cast members are Robbie as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as The Huntress and Jurnee Smollet-Bell as Black Canary.

The film is also seeking actors for the roles of Cassandra Cain and Renee Montoya.