Suicide Squad’s Margot Robbie to play trapeze artist in tragic biopic Queen of the Air

Circus performer died in a trapeze accident in Copenhagen

(Getty)

Margot Robbie hasn’t had a great 2016 film-wise - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was solid, but the same can’t be said for Warner Bros blockbusters The Legend of Tarzan and Suicide Squad.

She’s sticking with the studio in 2017 though for Queen of the Air, a biopic based on Dean N. Jensen’s 2013 non-fiction book of the same name that will tell the story of Lillian Leitzel, a famed 1920s acrobat and strongwoman with a ‘legendary temper’ who was known to fire and rehire her personal maid several times a day.

According to Deadline, the film will centre on her tragic romance with fellow acrobat Alfredo Codona. The pair had a volatile marriage, which was cut short in 1931 when Leitzel’s rigging snapped during a performance and she fell to her death. Six years later, Codona killed himself in Long Beach in a murder-suicide.

Leitzel was the first inductee elected into the International Circus Hall of Fame in 1958.

There is no director attached yet but in the right hands it could be an intriguing little film. Relative unknown screenwriter Cat Vasko is penning the script, with Andrew Lazar (American Sniper) producing.