It took actress Margot Robbie five years to make Birds of Prey because, while comic book movies are blowing up, the idea of bringing an almost all-female cast, with a female director and writer together, was still a large thing to ask for—especially with mostly lesser-known comic book characters, in the mainstream sense. But Robbie wanted to take that risk.
On its Feb 7th release, Birds of Prey will be the first superhero movie both written and directed solely by women, as well as the first modern R-rated superhero flick since Tank Girl. So why did Robbie want to take this route with Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya, and the second Batgirl, Cassandra Cain? Because Robbie wanted to uplift those characters.
In her interview with Nerdist, she explained that since Birds of Prey has a rotating roster, this was a way to bring in different names.
“Whilst I was researching the character I started to read Birds of Prey and first I fell in love with Huntress, and I started looking into all of that. I was like, ‘Wow, there’s so many cool female DC characters and no one knows anything about any of them!’ So what if we had a platform for fans to get to know and fall in love with some of these other amazing women,” Robbie said. “Focusing on the Gotham City Sirens, there were only three of us and we were all well known, whereas with Birds of Prey you can pick any grouping for that, and I thought that might be the perfect platform to introduce some female characters who might really have some legs in the DC universe.”
Oh boy, do a lot of them have legs.
Also, the wheels had been turning for this movie to have been made since before Wonder Woman came out, so there was a lot of anxiety on the part of backers to make this film, which led to the long gap between when we first heard a film like this was happening and the final product.
Robbie told Nerdist, “It was before Wonder Woman and I was saying, ‘I want a female-led action film’ – you know, those things weren’t being done yet. I think they wanted to make sure that if they’re going to take a risk like that, that it was going to be done correctly. So we spent a lot of time developing the script and making everyone feel confident in the material.”
While I do understand the frustrations of some fans that worry this adaptation will have too much Harley and wonder about the reasons for changing aspects of Cassandra Cain’s character so vastly, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Plus, since my favorite character is going to be in it, I’m happy for the world to have a different image of Dinah Lance than the Arrow version, which was filled with issues despite my love for Laurel Lance.
This will be an opportunity for us to see a diverse selection of women onscreen in this adaptation, and as someone who didn’t love Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, I’m hoping that this film will give me the feelings I’ve been longing to get from a female-led superhero movie.
(via Nerdist, image: DC Comics)
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