Director Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) brings a whole new flavor to the superhero genre, lighting up the usually dour and gothic Gotham City with a mix of neon and explosions. Helping Yan craft the film's story was screenwriter Christina Hodson, who isn't a stranger to big franchise films herself, having written 2018's Bumblebee.
Hodson spoke to CBR and other media outlets in Hollywood about working with Margot Robbie to get inside Harley Quinn's head for the film and what it feels like to be a part of the DC family.
Hodson was tasked with an entirely different kind of character with Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey. "Harley's got a completely different voice to anyone," she said, "but that's also the fun of it. She's got such a distinctive voice, and getting to work with Margot [Robbie] for so long was so awesome. We both just got to get inside her head, to a point where -- it was kind of fun, while we were in development people were asking us questions like 'maybe she can do this, maybe she could hit this person' and we were like '[Harley] would never hit that person! She'd kill this other person, but she'd never hit that person! It was fun living inside [Harley's] head because she's a wild ride, and the hope is that we got to make the movie into a wild ride."
Reflecting on her time with Robbie and the rest of the female-led production, Hodson said, "It was such an honor, and so exciting. And it also really nicely organic. It just sort of happened cause we all liked each other. Margot and I just met and got drunk on a Wednesday morning and were like, 'This is perfect!' [Director Cathy Yan] felt so cool and right, and Sue Kroll as a producer. It wasn't like we were trying to only hire women, we were just all drawn to each other. It was pretty fun top to bottom on this movie."
According to Hodson, the film that she, Robbie, Yan and Kroll ended up making is very close to what they initially intended. "It's funny," she explained. "Things change, obviously. It's a process, everything goes through so many different cycles. But weirdly, the heart of it and the core of it is really similar to where it began. We always try to do something weird and bold and risky and strange and different, and I hope we achieved that. Small story things have changed, but the heart and the essence and the style of it has always been the same."
Hodson is currently poised to become a more important architect for the future of the DC Extended Universe, having been potentially brought on to pen the script for the upcoming Flash film, directed by It: Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti. Hodson said of the DC Universe, "There's a bunch I fell in love with... One of my favorite [stories], I don't know if everyone should read yet because it might ruin too much, is [Harley Quinn: Vengeance Unlimited by A.J. Lieberman, Mike Huddleston and Troy Nixey]. I just love it, they did such a good job... a lot of good character stuff that I liked. I love all the Harley stuff, I love all the Birds of Prey stuff, like Chuck Dixon early Birds of Prey stuff is close to my heart. I think hopefully fans will find little bits from all the different iterations and get excited about the mishmash we did."
"The thing I love about working in this space generally is that any of these characters, you can do such a cool deep-dive on," she continued. "The comics have such a cool, varied history and you can really learn about these characters, get to know them, get to love them. I've happened to fall in love with [the Birds of Prey, and I know there will be others that I will too. I'm working on some others right now that I'm very much enjoying."
When pressed if she could give a hint at what other characters she might currently be working on though, Hodson replied, "You know I'm very deep in the DC family by now, so you know I can't answer that. They will have me in trouble."
Directed by Cathy Yan from a script by Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) stars Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Ella Jay Basco, Steven Williams, Derek Wilson, Dana Lee, Francois Chau, Charlene Amoia, Chris Messina and Matthew Willig. The film arrives Feb. 7.