Harley Quinn spin-off lands groundbreaking director after Margot Robbie pushes for female talent
Cathy Yan has been tapped to direct following her directorial debut Dead Pigs
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Warner Bros. has tapped Cathy Yan to direct DC’s Harley Quinn spin-off, Deadline reports. What makes the deal a piece of history in the making is the fact that Yan won over the job over a number of well-established male directors; she may have only just completed her directorial debut Dead Pigs, screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but her presentation reportedly made a huge splash with executives.
It proves an exceptional instance in which a woman of colour (Yan is Chinese-American) has been offered the same level of opportunity, the same level of faith and trust, that white men are already so used to receiving in Hollywood – with the likes of Colin Trevorrow and Josh Trank being hired for major tentpoles following their feature debuts.
Thankfully, Yan also had Margot Robbie firmly in her corner: the star, who will produce through her LuckyChap Entertainment banner, stood fast in her desire to get a woman in the director’s chair for the project.
Yan will now become the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe, after Wonder Woman‘s Patty Jenkins and The New Gods‘ Ava DuVernay.
The project is based on DC’s Birds of Prey comics, the name of an all-female gang operating out of Gotham City, teaming Quinn with the likes of Black Canary and Barbara Gordon.
That said, there’s no word yet on which characters will actually appear; in the comics, Barbara Gordon works under the codename Oracle, but the film may have her appear as Batgirl to tie in with the character’s own solo film currently being developed. Indeed, the script was penned by Christina Hodson, who has just been hired to write the Batgirl film.
Production will likely commence by the year’s end or early next year, after Robbie completes work on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which she’s negotiating to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
Multiple Harley Quinn projects have been in development since the character proved Suicide Squad’s major breakout. Gavin O’Connor is set to direct a Suicide Squad sequel; with Harley Quinn vs. The Joker and Gotham City Sirens – which centres on Gotham City’s female villains – with David Ayer as director seemingly less of a current priority for Warner Bros.
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