Exclusive: Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary Leading The Justice League In Sequel
We've exclusively learned that DC has big plans for Jurnee Smollett as Black Canary in Justice League 2.
Update November 2022: With the DC Universe undergoing a major shift and reset in stories and characters, Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary is no longer in the plans.
It was only two weeks ago that an announcement came out confirming Jurnee Smollett would again star as Black Canary for an HBO Max film. This has her reprising the role we first saw her in as part of Birds of Prey with Margot Robbie. Following this announcement, we immediately reached out to our contacts. About a week later, we learned that the movie will introduce Green Arrow for the DC Extended Universe, setting him up for his own future solo movie. Clearly, HBO Max is going to be doing a lot to develop more characters for the DC Extended Universe. So where are they going with this? We have now learned from one of our trusted and proven inside sources that Warner Bros wants Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary to lead the team in Justice League 2.
Our source was able to share with us that the Justice League 2 project will be a “sequel/soft reboot”. It sounds like the studio may be taking an approach similar to their recent release, The Suicide Squad, where the new movie wasn’t deeply connected to Suicide Squad, but was still in the same world. In that example, there were a few characters in both titles, but mostly new faces. Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary will be leading the team. But who else will be joining her? It’s going to be interesting to see how they build-up to this project with their new titles.
While we were unable to learn who will be in the upcoming Justice League 2 project they are planning for Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary, it would seem very likely that their plan will include a lot of the other stars they’ve been working to introduce through other upcoming projects on HBO Max. This would mean there are possible announced characters like Batgirl played by Leslie Grace and Blue Beetle played by Xolo Maridueña. They may also include other characters we’ve learned DC is developing projects for, like Animal Man and Superboy. Since we learned that they’re planning to introduce Green Arrow in Black Canary, it seems likely his character will be part of the team.
It also seems likely they’ll also be including characters we’ve only previously seen on the big screen for DC. For example, Sasha Calle is about to be introduced as Supergirl in The Flash. Could she be joining this new Justice League led by Jurnee Smollett?
While Black Canary is set to be a solo film for HBO Max, we first met Jurnee Smollett’s character on the big screen in Birds of Prey. Upcoming DC projects will be taking place sometimes exclusively on the streaming service and sometimes in movie theaters. At this point, Warner Bros is experimenting with these projects.
With Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary leading Justice League 2, it suggests that a lot of characters introduced on HBO Max may be included, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie itself will be on HBO Max. Right now, their strategy seems to be releasing lower-budget films on streaming and using that platform to experiment with building out their universe. These movies are still part of the DC Extended Universe, where Zack Snyder’s Justice League took place. It seems likely that the studio will be watching to see what characters are working well as they develop Justice League 2 and build up to a project again on the big screen.
Our sources were unable to share what the release strategy for this Jurnee Smollett team-up film will be though, and it may depend more on how they view HBO Max’s streaming numbers versus box office numbers over the next year or two. For now, it seems fair to expect that Black Canary is going to be a big deal for the streaming service, and that Jurnee’s character may be appearing in other solo titles building up to Justice League 2.
