Big news just came out of Deadline. It looks like Birds of Prey, the current DC Comics spin-off being produced by Margot Robbie, will be directed by Cathy Yan. If you don’t know how to react, that’s perfectly understandable. Yan isn’t a household name by any stretch, with her only other effort in feature length writing/directing was an indie called Dead Pigs that hit Sundance earlier this year.
Margot Robbie has been adamant about hiring a woman to direct the film, and it’s interesting that they decided to take a chance on someone like Yan. Granted, this has been done with many directors like Colin Trevorrow, Marc Webb, Gareth Edwards, the list goes on, but those directors have been mostly male. So, it’s nice to see an up-and-coming female director being given the chance to take on a big project. I haven’t seen Dead Pigs, but I am excited to check it out and see what kind of filmmaker she is. She’s also the third female director involved with DC after Patty Jenkins, and Ava DuVernay being announced for New Gods.
This news is coming not too long after it was announced that Christina Hodson will be writing the Batgirl movie after Joss Whedon left the project, and she is also the writer tapped for Birds of Prey.
While WB may have an absurd amount of DC films slated in the future, it does at least appear that at least a few of them will see the light of day, and I’m very curious to see what comes of this film in particular.
Production on Birds of Prey will start toward the end of the year or in early 2019.