We hadn’t heard anything about the Suicide Squad spin-offs oriented around Margot Robbie’s character Harley Quinn for a while now but it looks like a new project based on the character is gaining momentum.
Warner Bros. has tapped Cathy Yan to direct DC’s Harley Quinn spin-off, Deadline reports. Her directorial debut Dead Pigs won the World Cinema Dramatic Award for Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year, but it was her presentation at DC that reportedly made an especially big splash with executives.
Robbie, who will produce through her LuckyChap Entertainment banner, reportedly stood fast in her desire to get a woman in the director’s chair for the project.
If a deal is signed, Yan will become the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe, after Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins and The New Gods’ Ava DuVernay. She would be the first female Asian director to helm a superhero movie.
Yan is penning the screenplay as well along with Christina Hodson (Bumblebee).
The project is distinct from the Harley Quinn vs. The Joker and Gotham City Sirens movie projects that have been in contention at Warner Bros. This one, rather, is based on DC’s Birds of Prey comics, which follow the ventures of an all-female gang operating out of Gotham City. It sees Quinn team up with the likes of Black Canary, Poison Ivy, Huntress and Barbara Gordon.
Production on the untitled tentpole is expected to begin late this year or in early 2019.