No matter what you thought of Suicide Squad — a film in which DC Comics' most notorious villains fight evil to an '80s rock soundtrack — you very likely thought that Margot Robbie's portrayal of the cute-but-deranged Harley Quinn was the best part. Now, we're getting an entire movie dedicated to telling Harley Quinn's story, and, yay: This new film will be women-centric behind the camera as well as in front of it.
The upcoming superhero film is already being touted as a "girl gang movie," so it's only appropriate that there are, well, a lot of women working on it. In addition to Robbie starring in the new DC venture, she will also act as producer. The star did the same for I, Tonya, a film which earned her a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars. According to Deadline, it was Robbie who "held firm" on her desire for the Harley Quinn film to be helmed by a woman.
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Per the new report from Deadline, Cathy Yan will direct the Harley Quinn spin-off, which has yet to name an official title. This is huge for not only women in film, but also women of color in the entertainment industry: Yan, who was born in China, will be the first Asian woman to direct a big-budget superhero flick. She landed the job after writing and directing her acclaimed indie film Dead Pigs.
The new movie was also written by a woman of color — Christina Hodson, who is an Asian-English screenwriter. Her credits include Unforgettable and Shut In, but she's also no stranger to big-budget action movies: Hodson will pen the upcoming Transformers spin-off Bumblebee as well as the new Batgirl movie, following Joss Whedon's exit on the latter.
Honestly? This is awesome. For too long, big-budget action films, and specifically those within the superhero subgenre, have been a boy's club. There has been a misconception that women are not attracted to these films — one that the success of movies like Wonder Woman and even the recent female-led Star Wars films, seen by both men and women, have squashed.
Let's hope that women leading the charge on a superhero movie isn't something worth writing about in the future — because it becomes just as common as when dudes get these gigs.