DC’s Harley Quinn-centric film has a director.
Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has chosen filmmaker Cathy Yan to helm an untitled girl gang movie featuring Margot Robbie’s scene-stealing “Suicide Squad” character. If the deal closes, Yan will be the first Asian woman filmmaker to direct a superhero film, and the third female filmmaker to join the DC film universe after “Wonder Woman’s” Patty Jenkins and Ava DuVernay, who is set lead “New Gods.”
Image credit: Michael Loccisano via Getty Images
Per Deadline, the film is expected to be based on the “Birds of Prey” comic, which traditionally features heroines such as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, Black Canary and Huntress. Christina Hodson, whom Warner Bros. hired to write “Batgirl,” penned the script.
Deadline says that “Yan’s presentation for ‘Birds of Prey’ was exceptional, and Robbie held firm to her desire for this film to be directed by a woman.” Robbie is producing via her LuckyChap Entertainment with Sue Kroll’s Kroll & Co. Entertainment and Bryan Unkeless’s Clubhouse Pictures.
Yan, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, made her feature debut with “Dead Pigs.” The film earned rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, winning the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting.
Warner Bros. is currently developing several projects centering on the anti-hero, including “Suicide Squad 2,” a Harley-Joker movie and “Gotham City Sirens,” a spinoff revolving around female villains.
Since the news broke that the studio landed Yan to direct the film, Variety reporter Justin Kroll tweeted an update on the story, confirming that production on “Suicide Squad 2” is being delayed and that Barbara Gordon’s will be featured in “Birds of Prey.”
On Tuesday, Kroll tweeted, saying, “As for ‘Suicide Squad 2,’ clearly moving out of 2018 shoot. The move to go with BOP [‘Birds of Prey’] not only had a lot to do with Hodson’s script but also the idea of doing with ‘Batgirl’ what Marvel did with Black Panther in ‘Civil War’ by introducing them into universe before giving them own film.”
Production on Yan’s “Birds of Prey” is expected to begin at the end of the year after Robbie completes filming on Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”