It's no secret that making blockbuster movies is a lot of hard work. Now, try making said blockbuster a female-centric superhero/action film, written and directed by a woman, in a society where sexist, trolling fanboys review bomb women-led projects for no reason, and you have an even more daunting task to complete.
Still, that didn't stop actress, producer, and Oscar nominee Margot Robbie from fighting to make Warner Bros.' upcoming Harley Quinn title, Birds of Prey, a reality. In fact, according to a recent interview she did with Nerdist, Robbie's journey to get the movie made took nearly half a decade of advocacy.
"Even the quickest movie making process can be at least three years, I reckon," Robbie told the comic book news website. "But this one, it took a little longer, it was a tall order. It was before anyone had done an R-rated comic book film. I was saying, 'I want to do an R-rated film.'"
She continued:
"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. Then once everyone was on board, some other things started coming out to help them feel like, 'Oh yeah, this could work.' After that it started to move really fast, but in the initial stages I think what I was pitching sounded crazy."
Robbie also spoke about the inspiration behind bringing the Birds of Prey from the comics to the big screen, and falling in love with the ensemble cast of less-known female characters:
"During Suicide Squad–when we would go to Comic-Con and such–I started to realize there was just such a huge fan base for Harley. 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? 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."
Read Margot's full interview on Nerdist here, and catch Birds of Prey when it hits theaters on February 7.
Birds of Prey: The Album—which includes bops like Megan Thee Stallion & Normani's "Diamonds" and Doja Cat's "Boss B*tch"—also drops on February 7 and is available for pre-order!
