We may know which heroes will join Harley Quinn in Cathy Yan's Birds Of Prey

Welcome to Development Hell, the fiery pit into which we fling recent developments in casting, distribution, and everything else that’s new and mildly interesting in the Boschian phantasmagoria of the entertainment industry.

Michael Jai White finally explained what was going on with his extremely quick death in The Dark Knight, solving one of the film’s weirdest little “mistakes” (another being “how did Batman sneak up behind the Joker at that party without literally everyone seeing him?”). The rest of the pop culture world is busy with projects that don’t involve clarifying decade-old superhero movies, though, and now we’re going to run down a list of some non-Batman-related news.

• Well, after this one we will. If you believe the rumors, Margot Robbie’s Birds Of Prey film—which is going to feature multiple female heroes from the DC universe—is going to include Black Canary, Huntress, Cassandra Cain, and Renee Montoya, all of whom are very cool and very deserving of being in a movie. The villain will also reportedly be a big name from the Batman books who has never been in a movie, which is still a pretty long list. (Scarface and the Ventriloquist? That might be fun.) [via The Wrap]
• Netflix has released the first image of Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown, replacing Claire Foy as a slightly older version of the monarch in the show’s upcoming third season. She looks like Olivia Colman but as a queen, with a queenly hairstyle and a queenly tea cup.
• Alita: Battle Angel is going to have some kind of “sneak peak” to show at San Diego Comic-Con later this week, but fans are going to have to earn their way into the screening by completing some kind of weird scavenger hunt around the convention center. That probably won’t mean much to the folks at home, other than that we probably won’t get to see whatever the people there get to see, but that’s usually how these Comic-Con panels go anyway. [via The Hollywood Reporter]
• Beanie Fedstein, who played Lady Bird’s friend in Lady Bird, is set to star in a comedic coming-of-age film called How To Build A Girl. The film is based on British broadcaster and screenwriter Caitlin Moran’s memoir of the same name, and it also features Game Of Thrones fuck-up Alfie Allen. [via Deadline]
• The cast of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix show The Politician is coming together, with Zoey Deutch, Lucy Boynton, Laura Dreyfuss, and Rahne Jones joining Gwyneth Paltrow and (maybe) Barbra Streisand. They’re not as famous as Paltrow and Streisand, but is anyone? [via Deadline]
• The BBC has released a teaser video promoting its upcoming drama shows, many of which are airing across the TV landscape in the States. The ABC Murders will stream on Amazon, Les Misérables is going to PBS, The Little Drummer Girl is going to AMC, Wanderlust will be on Netflix, and both Black Earth Rising and Gentleman Jack will air on HBO. John Malkovich is in one of them! [via Deadline]