BIRDS OF PREY Movie Casts Chris Messina as Victor Zsasz

Start tallying the days until the Birds of Prey movie comes out.

Deadline has word that the upcoming Warner Bros./DC film Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), based on the DC Comics superteam, has cast Chris Messina as the deadly villain Victor Zsasz.  

Messina joins Margot Robbie, who is reprising her Suicide Squad role as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya, and Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain.  Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) will be directed by Cathy Yan.

According to the article, Victor Zsasz is described as "a sadistic serial killer who carves a tally mark onto himself for each of his victims" and "will be working in cahoots with Ewan McGregor’s lead bad guy Black Mask."

Messina, 44, is probably best known as Malinov in the 2012 film Argo and as Dr. Daniel Castellano on the Fox and Hulu series The Mindy Project.  He has appeared in the films Julie & Julia, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, You've Got Mail, and Rounders.  In addition, he's appeared on episodes of The Newsroom, Sharp Objects, Damages, Medium, Six Feet Under, and Law & Order.

Created in 1992 by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, Victor Zsasz first appeared in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #1 as the head of his own international company who had amassed a large personal fortune in addition to his family's wealth.  At the age of 25, his parents died in a boating accident, sending him into a deep depression.  He turned to gambling, losing money in competitions around the world.  One night, he ended up in a Gotham City casino known as the Iceberg Lounge, where he gambled everything he owned and ended up losing it all to the Penguin.  Afterwards, he saw that his life was empty, driven by desire, and there was no point to his existence.  While he was attempting to commit suicide by jumping from Gotham Bridge, a homeless man tried to assault him with a knife after he refused to give him money. Instinctively grabbing the knife, Zsasz saw in the man's eyes that all life is meaningless and that nothing nor anyone matters.  He then proceeded to stab the man to death as a "gift" for saving his life.  

From then on, Zsasz dedicated himself to "liberating" others from their pointless existence (Zsasz often refers to victims as "zombies").  He usually preys on young women, but has no qualms over whom he murders.  He slits his victims' throats and leaves them in lifelike poses, adding a tally mark to himself each time.  He has been diagnosed as insane and is regularly incarcerated in Arkham Asylum courtesy of Batman, breaking out on occasion to carry on killing.

During his debut appearance in the storyline "Batman: The Last Arkham", Zsasz bribed a contractor to include a secret passage leading out from his cell during the asylum's reconstruction under its new head, Jeremiah Arkham, who inherited the asylum from his uncle, Amadeus Arkham.  Although Zsasz was restrained during the daytime when being treated personally by Jeremiah Arkham, he was brought back to his cell at night, where he would leave the asylum through the secret passage, unbeknownst to the night guards.  After murders fitting his modus operandi begin surfacing, Batman and Commissioner James Gordon faked Batman's insanity in order to get him inside the asylum and investigate Zsasz. Jeremiah Arkham was exceptionally brutal towards Batman, who had supposedly murdered a police officer.  Over the course of the "treatment", Zsasz had warped Jeremiah's mind and turned him into a mere henchman.  Due to these continuous conversations with Jeremiah Arkham, Zsasz realized that Batman was a plant and subsequently murdered both the contractor and another inmate at Arkham who knew of Zsasz's ploy.  Both Nightwing and Batman caught up to Zsasz when he tried to escape for the final time and put him back in Arkham.

Recently, Zsasz has appeared various times in DC Comics' current continuity The New 52 as an inmate of Arkham, and he was later seen attacking Batgirl in the Narrows, while on the drug Venom.  Zsasz was released from Arkham Asylum by the Joker prior to the events of the storyline "Death of the Family".  Later, he was hired by Ignatius Ogilvy, the Emperor Penguin, to "leave [his] mark on Gotham City" and given a knife with Emperor Penguin's insignia on it.  Zsasz was later instructed to put the Man-Bat serum on the knife, as part of Emperor Penguin's plan to turn the population of Gotham City into Man-Bats through an airborne virus.  Zsasz was temporarily transformed into one.  During the Forever Evil storyline, Nightwing had retrieved Victor Zsasz from Chicago and was bringing him back to Arkham Asylum, until he was abducted by Superwoman and Owlman.  After the DC Rebirth reboot, Batman and Duke Thomas investigated a series of murders that were linked to Zsasz.  Flashbacks to the story arc "The War of Jokes and Riddles" revealed that Zsasz had sided with the Riddler in a war against the Joker.

Messina will be the third actor to portray Victor Zsasz in live-action, after Tim Booth in the 2005 film Batman Begins and Anthony Carrigan on the Fox TV series Gotham.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on February 7, 2020.