Warner Taps Cathy Yan to Direct ‘Birds of Prey’ Centered Around Harley Quinn

Warner Taps Cathy Yan to Direct ‘Birds of Prey’ Centered Around Harley Quinn

Birds of Prey is one DC Comic’s most beloved recent comic book concepts. Created by editor Jordan Gorfinkel and writer Chuck Dixon, the comic brought together Green Arrow/Green Lantern supporting character Dinah Lance, the Black Canary, with Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl who, after being paralyzed by The Joker, went by the code name Oracle, and laid down the formula for pretty much every comic book based TV series with someone at headquarters using a computer and talking into the hero’s ear. The comic was a success, but it didn’t achieve real popularity until Gail Simone took over the title and added Huntress to the team.

What you’ll notice is I didn’t mention Harley Quinn, who is not a member of the team, or a supporting character, or really anyone who had anything to do with the Birds of Prey aside from Quinn, Oracle and Huntress starting life as Batman characters and all being women. But by god Warner Brothers is going to cram Harley into Birds of Prey because Harley is so popular if there’s a female-focused DC Comics movie, Harley will be there.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cathy Yan is being brought in to direct the Birds of Prey film, which is still internally being called “untitled Harley Quinn girl gang movie” and being promoted as “an all-female variation on Suicide Squad.”

In other words, things are looking grim. For starters, I wouldn’t compare my film to Suicide Squad unless my description was “Like Suicide Squad, but actually good.” People have seen Suicide Squad, they know it was terrible. Shoehorning Harley Quinn into a title she wasn’t a part of and isn’t a particularly good fit for isn’t the recipe for a good movie, either.

I had such high hopes for DC when they hired Ava Duvernay to helm a Fourth World film, and Cathy Yan seems like a great choice to direct a Harley Quinn movie, but unless it turns out that Harley is going to be the antagonist in a Birds of Prey film, which would be amazing, this film sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen

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