Cathy Yen Signs on to Direct Untitled ‘Harley Quinn’ Film for DC and Warner Bros.

Warner Bros and DC Entertainment have chosen Cathy Yan to be the director of an untitled girl gang movie, likely the next superhero film to be graced by Suicide Squad scene-stealer Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). A deal has to be completed, but it is expected that Yan will become the second female filmmaker to join the DCEU after Wonder Woman‘s Patty Jenkins, and the first female Asian director ever tapped to direct a superhero film.

The film is expected to be based off of the Birds of Prey property and is set to be the next film to feature Margot Robbie in the role of Harley Quinn. The exclusive report by Deadline also states that, despite being a new talent, Yan’s presentation for Birds of Prey was exceptional, and Robbie held firm to her desire for this film to be directed by a woman.

Birds of Prey is just one of up to five films in development featuring Harley Quinn. Harley is also reportedly set for her own solo movie, a duo film with Jared Leto’s Joker, a Gotham City Sirens movie with Catwoman and Poison Ivy along with David Ayer set to direct, and potentially the sequel to Suicide Squad which sees Will Smith and Jared Leto returning a well as Gavin O’Connor helming the project.

The project is based on Birds of Prey, which in the DC comics-verse teams Black Canary, Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) and Huntress. It is not confirmed if all of them will be characters in the film. What is clear is that both the main characters and most of the creative team are female, a remarkable feat for a studio-sized superhero film. The script was written by Christina Hodson, who wrote the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee, and just got hired to write the Batgirl movie. It is also unclear if the Batgirl film will remain its own entity or be absorbed into this feature.

Cathy Yan was a Wall Street Journal reporter who worked in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing, and was one of the paper’s youngest reporters to land multiple stories on the front page. She wrote and directed numerous short films before stepping up to features with Dead Pigs.

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