Earlier this year, it was announced that filmmaker Cathy Yan will be directing the upcoming Birds of Prey film for the DC Extended Universe. Yan is the third female filmmaker on the current slate of DC Films following Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and The New Gods director Ava DuVernay.
Speculation about Birds of Prey has dominated the internet ever since it was announced that Warner Bros. would be moving forward with this project. The film is currently set to hit theaters Spring 2020, and Yan is eager to bring the property to life.
Yan appeared at the U.S.-China Entertainment summit, where she revealed how she ended up landing the directing gig for the upcoming DC film. Yan responded with the following:
“I did my homework. I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it was relatively painless and straightforward. I immediately loved the script and it felt like something I could really do, and it felt very much like my own voice. I could not put the script down, it had so much dark humor to it which a lot of my work does, and there are themes of female empowerment which are so strong and relateable. So I went in with, not with confidence, but at least a sense that I belonged in the room, that somehow magically in terms of timing and luck that this opportunity was open to me and I was definitely going to make the best of it.”
Yan also revealed how her pitch meeting with Warner Bros. turned out:
“It came out of me. I have never done any of these things and I asked my agents for examples to get a better sense: I put together a pitch deck and also assembled a sizzle reel. But I would say it wasn’t like a lot of other sizzle reels which reference other films that remotely feel like your film. I find those to be rather pointless. But I created my own version that thematically and tonally conveyed what you would feel (in my movie).”
During the summit, Yan also confirmed that the film would be aiming for an R Rating.
Details on the Birds of Prey plot are currently unknown, though the film will center around the titular team of female heroes and villains based on the DC Comics characters and concepts created by Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Chuck Dixon. Birds of Prey will also feature Batman villain Black Mask as the main antagonist of the film.
Directed by Cathy Yan from a script penned by Bumblebee writer Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey stars Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, and Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya. Production on the project is expected to begin this January.
Birds of Prey will be released in theaters on February 7, 2020.
Source: Deadline
