Although there was a lot of promise for Birds of Prey, it ended up underperforming at the box office (partly due to hitting theaters around the time that COVID went worldwide) and received lukewarm reviews, at best. The main criticism levied against the movie was that it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It was either a Deadpool-style fourth-wall-breaking comedy led by Harley Quinn or a team-up movie anchored by an ensemble, and those two premises were at odds. According to director Cathy Yan, this was the result of interference by Warner Bros.
In a recent interview with The Playlist, Yan compared her experiences working with a big budget on Birds of Prey to working with a smaller budget on her directorial debut Dead Pigs. While Dead Pigs was “a singular, pure version” of herself, Yan says that dealing with the nine-figure budget of Birds of Prey was “definitely challenging” because she faced “pressures” from Warner Bros., and the studio was “undergoing a lot of change” at the time. The director explained, “inevitably, you end up having to compromise and fight for stuff. And you win some and you lose a lot. It’s just kind of how it is.”
Warner Bros. tapped Yan to helm Birds of Prey after Dead Pigs emerged as one of the biggest critical hits of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Margot Robbie was attached to Birds of Prey as a producer to avoid the overt sexualization of Harley Quinn that had been seen in Suicide Squad, but ultimately, since the studio executives are the ones stumping up $100 million, they’re the ones who get the final say when there’s a creative disagreement. After giving Yan more or less full creative control during pre-production and production, Warner Bros. stepped in during post-production.
According to Yan, studio interference is just part of the deal when making a big-budget blockbuster: “I would have loved to have more control over the edit, but that’s just kind of how it is.” Yan added, “I don’t know if there’s a Cathy Yan cut out there,” so don’t go starting any movements like #ReleaseTheSnyderCut or #ReleaseTheAyerCut just yet. But she did acknowledge that tampering by the studio isn’t conducive to creativity, because the goal of making movies is “to match what you ultimately see on screen with what’s in our head.”
Although Birds of Prey didn’t make enough money at the box office to warrant a sequel, Yan hasn’t ruled out directing another big-budget movie if the story is interesting. She explained, “I would not discount ever doing [a big studio movie] again. I try not to think of whether I would do this type of movie or that type of movie again, or whether I’d work with this studio or that. But more like, ‘Is this story compelling?’” She added that she’s interested in working more from her own scripts (Birds of Prey was penned by Christina Hodson) in order to “have a little bit more control over the story I’m telling.”
Over the years, Warner Bros. has become notorious for tampering with filmmakers’ visions for DCEU movies. The studio hired the editors of Suicide Squad’s well-received preview to completely recut David Ayer’s movie as, bascially, a feature-length trailer and forced Zack Snyder to keep Justice League under two hours after the lengthy runtime of Batman v Superman was criticized. So, the fact that they altered Yan’s vision for Birds of Prey is hardly surprising.
Birds of Prey is now available on HBO Max.
Source: The Playlist
![\"IT電腦補習](\"http://itteacheritfreelance.hk/test/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo2-2.png\"){kind=logo}
www.itsec.hk
www.itsec.vip
www.itseceu.uk
Leave a Reply