Tag: Cathy Yan

“Birds of Prey” has added Ali Wong in a supporting role, an individual with knowledge of the project exclusively tells The Wrap.

Wong is playing an associate of Renee Montoya in Gotham law enforcement. Additionally, actor Robert Catrini has joined the cast. His role is being kept under wraps.

Margot Robbie, reprising her “Suicide Squad” role of Harley Quinn, will also produce “Birds of Prey.” The film is centered around a revolving group of female heroes and villains, individuals with knowledge of the project tell TheWrap.

Robbie, reprising her “Suicide Squad” role, will also produce “Birds of Prey.” The film is centered around a revolving group of female heroes and villains, individuals with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.

“Birds of Prey” will be produced by Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Clubhouse Pictures’ Bryan Unkeless, as well as Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year. Yan would be the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe with this film. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Ewan McGregor is in final negotiations to play Gotham City mob boss and Batman foe Black Mask in Warner Bros ‘Birds of Prey, individuals with knowledge of the project exclusively tell TheWrap.

McGregor joins Jurnee Smollet-Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead who have been cast as Black Canary and Huntress. Also, as TheWrap first reported, Rosie Perez is playing Renee Montoya. The female superhero team-up film will be released on Feb. 7, 2020.

Created by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, Black Mask made his first appearance in the comics in August 1985’s Batman issue #386. The Black Mask is a brutally sadistic kingpin in Gotham City’s criminal underworld who has a fixation with masks.

In DC Comics Black Mask is the criminal alias of Roman Sionis, who murdered his wealthy, status-obsessed parents to take control of the family corporation, then lost everything when he proved to be a terrible businessman. Seeking revenge on the people he blamed for his own failures — particularly Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises — he returns, hidden behind an ebony black mask, at the head of a gang called the False Face Society.

Robbie, reprising her “Suicide Squad” role, will also produce “Birds of Prey.” The film is centered around a revolving group of female heroes and villains, individuals with knowledge of the project tell TheWrap.

“Birds of Prey” will be produced by Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Bryan Unkeless, as well as Robbie.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year. Yan would be the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe with this film. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

McGregor can currently be seen in Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh” adaptation “Christopher Robin.” Next up, Mcgregor will play Danny Torrance in Warner Bros.’ adaptation of the Stephen King novel “Doctor Sleep,” the sequel to horror classic “The Shining.”

This evening at the U.S.-China Entertainment Summit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, attendees for the first time, had the opportunity to hear Cathy Yan talk a bit about her upcoming big studio directorial, Warner Bros./DC’s Birds …

The cast of DC’s Birds Of Prey movie was already looking pretty good, with Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing the Huntress, and Jurnee Smollett-Bell playing Black Canary, but now The Wrap is reporting that…

Academy Award nominee Rosie Perez has been cast as Renee Montoya and will join Harley Quinn’s girl gang in the Margot Robbie film “Birds of Prey,” TheWrap has exclusively learned.

Montoya is a detective working for the Gotham City Police Department. Montoya is openly gay, and during The New 52 comics she took on a costumed identity, becoming the Question. The female superhero team-up film will be released on Feb. 7, 2020. Perez joins Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead who have been cast as Black Canary and Huntress.

Robbie will reprise her “Suicide Squad” character, Harley Quinn as well as produce alongside Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Bryan Unkeless. The film follows the adventures of a revolving group of female heroes and villains and is based on the DC Comics characters and concepts created by Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Chuck Dixon.

In addition, TheWrap has exclusively learned that the villain in “Birds of Prey” will be Black Mask, one of Batman’s foes who has never before appeared on the big screen.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year.

Yan would be the third female filmmaker to join the DC Universe with this film, which is still known as the Untitled Girl Gang Movie at Warner Bros. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

Yan was previously a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing and was one of the youngest writers in the paper’s history to pen multiple front-page stories. She is represented by CAA.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Perez has had a distinguished career ever since she broke out as Tina in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” Perez went on to play supporting roles in Ron Shelton’s “White Men Can’t Jump,” and Carla Rodrigo in Peter Weir’s “Fearless,” for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Perez recent credits include NBC’s “Rise” and she also voiced Dulce in Disney Television’s “Elena of Avalor.”

Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are being considered for leading roles in Warner Bros.’ female superhero team-up film “Birds of Prey,” TheWrap has learned.

Smollett-Bell is being eyed to play Dinah Lance, AKA Black Canary, while Mary Elizabeth Winstead is on the wish list for Helena Bertinelli, better known as Huntress.

Other names under consideration for the film, which will be centered around “Suicide Squad” standout Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, include Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Cristin Milioti, Sofia Boutella, Justina Machado, Roberta Colindrez, and Margaret Qualley. Mbatha-Raw is also being looked at as a possible Black Canary while Milioti, Boutella and Qualley is in the mix for Huntress. Machado and Colindrez are being looked at for Renee Montoya.

But insiders with knowledge of the project caution that it is still early in the selection process and no offers have been made. However, the actors need to be locked down for the roles by the end of September in order to complete training in fight choreography before principal photography begins in January.

Originally created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino in 1947, Black Canary/Dinah Laurel is a fantastic hand-to-hand combatant from a family of crime fighters — Her father, Larry Lance, was a police officer, while her mother (also named Dinah) was the original Black Canary. Since the 1960s she’s been most commonly associated with the hero Green Arrow, and has been featured heavily on The CW’s “Arrow,” where she was played for several seasons by Katie Cassidy. A new version of Black Canary is currently played by Juliana Harkavy.

Created by writer Joey Cavalieri and artist Joe Staton in 1989, Helena Bertinelli is the third DC Comics character to use the name Huntress. Once a mafia princess whose family was killed in a mob hit, she eventually becomes a vigilante bent on taking down the mob in the name of Justice. Operating out of Gotham City, she’s typically an uneasy ally of Batman, and even briefly operated as Batgirl. She was a recurring character on The CW’s “Arrow,” played by Jessica De Gouw.

Robbie will reprise her “Suicide Squad” character, Harley Quinn as well produce alongside Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Clubhouse Pictures’ Bryan Unkeless. The film follows the adventures of a revolving group of female heroes and villains and is based on the DC Comics characters and concepts created by Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Chuck Dixon.

In addition, TheWrap has exclusively learned that the villain in “Birds of Prey” will be Black Mask, one of Batman’s foes who has never before appeared on the big screen.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Smollett-Bell who is repped by ICM Partners and Management 360 is currently shooting upcoming HBO drama series “Lovecraft Country.”

Winstead who is repped by WME just wrapped Paramount’s “Gemini Man” opposite Will Smith.

Qualley who is repped by UTA is currently playing Kitty Kat in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

EXCLUSIVE: It was a female director who gave the industry and Warner Bros. the highest overall summer film last year with $412.5M at the domestic box office and provided the studio the wind to sail past Disney as the first to win the $2B domestic box o…

Gotham City mob boss and Batman foe Black Mask will make his big screen debut as the villain in ‘Birds of Prey, TheWrap has exclusively learned.

As TheWrap first reported, the film will feature female DC Comics heavy hitters Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya, and a young Cassandra Cain, alongside star Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Created by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, Black Mask made his first appearance in the comics in August 1985’s Batman issue #386. The Black Mask is a brutally sadistic kingpin in Gotham City’s criminal underworld who has a fixation with masks.

In DC Comics Black Mask is the criminal alias of Roman Sionis, who murdered his wealthy, status-obsessed parents to take control of the family corporation, then lost everything when he proved to be a terrible businessman. Seeking revenge on the people he blamed for his own failures — particularly Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises — he returns, hidden behind an ebony black mask, at the head of a gang called the False Face Society.

Robbie, reprising her “Suicide Squad” role, will also produce “Birds of Prey.” The film is centered around a revolving group of female heroes and villains, individuals with knowledge of the project tell TheWrap.

“Birds of Prey” will be produced by Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Clubhouse Pictures’ Bryan Unkeless, as well as Robbie.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year. Yan would be the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe with this film. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Robbie will produce “Birds of Prey” and reprise her “Suicide Squad” character, Harley Quinn. The film is centered around a revolving group of female heroes and villains, individuals with knowledge of thew project tell TheWrap.

In addition, TheWrap has learned that the villain in “Birds of Prey” will be a Batman comics villain who has never before appeared on the big screen.

“Birds of Prey” will be produced by Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll and Clubhouse Pictures’ Bryan Unkeless, as well as Robbie.

Here is a rundown of the “Birds of Prey” characters, who will be familiar to longtime DC comics fans:

-Black Canary, aka Dinah Laurel, is a fantastic hand-to-hand combatant who comes from a family of crime fighters. Her father, Larry Lance, was a police officer, while her mother (also named Dinah) was the original Black Canary.

-Helena Bertinelli, aka Huntress, is a vigilante operating out of Gotham City.

-Cassandra Cain is one of the world’s greatest martial artists, and also a vigilante.

-Renee Montoya is a detective working for the Gotham City Police Department. Montoya is openly lesbian, and during The New 52 comics she takes on a costumed identity, becoming the Question.

Cathy Yan is set to direct. Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year.

Yan would be the third female filmmaker to join the DC universe with this film, which is still known as the Untitled Girl Gang Movie at Warner Bros. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

Yan was previously a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing and was one of the youngest writers in the paper’s history to pen multiple front-page stories. She is represented by CAA.

As TheWrap first reported, Christina Hodson wrote the “Birds of Prey” spinoff for Warner Bros. and DC Films. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Cathy Yan is in early talks to direct Margot Robbie in the next Harley Quinn movie, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.

Yan is best known for writing and directing her feature debut “Dead Pigs,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Award For Ensemble Acting at Sundance earlier this year.

Yan would be the second female filmmaker to join the DC universe with this film, which is still known as the Untitled Girl Gang Movie at Warner Bros. She will also be the first Asian woman to direct a DC film.

The girl gang movie is being written by screenwriter Christina Hodson, and it will be produced by Robbie, Kroll & Co Entertainment’s Sue Kroll, and Clubhouse Pictures’ Bryan Unkeless. Hodson is also writing “Batgirl” for DC.

Yan will not direct the “Gotham City Sirens” or “Harley vs Joker” films also in contention at Warner Bros.

Yan was previously a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing and was one of the youngest writers in the paper’s history to pen multiple front-page stories. She is represented by CAA.

In the Chinese zodiac, the happy-go-lucky pig stands for good fortune and wealth. So an inexplicable epidemic that decimates the porcine population in a developing part of China still heavily reliant on pig farming, could be symbolically as well as literally disastrous, and it provides Cathy Yan’s sprawling, bouncing, jaunty debut with its darkest images. […]

A rich crop of satisfying movies featuring themes of race and gender have stood out at 2018’s Sundance Film Festival so far, displaying a newfound confidence on issues that have divided the country.

From the funny-not-funny Oakland, Calif., drama “Blindspotting” to the micro-aggression symphony “Tyrel” to the satire “Sorry to Bother You” to Idris Elba’s tale of Jamaican immigrants in England in the early 1970s, “Yardie,” the films span a range of tone and undertone.

What they share is the strength of the voices and performances. Sundance always features diverse voices, but the quality has never been higher. In the years since #OscarsSoWhite, it seems that talent and stories about underrerpresented communities have found their way to Park City in significant numbers — and rather than feeling as if the festival is taking work to satisfy a quota, this year’s films simply seem to be an integral part of the festival’s longstanding commitment to showcasing new voices.

“Blindspotting” was a script nine years in the making from stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. It explores two best friends trying to define themselves in the social, political and racial pressure cooker of Oakland. It’s an unflinching look at what happens when those who are other cannot divorce the political from the personal.

These diverse voices are not limited to trauma. In Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You,” LaKeith Stanfield plays a telemarketer who unlocks the keys to success when he puts on his “white voice” with customers. Sales skyrocket, which creates tension with his activist girlfriend (Tessa Thompson) as he becomes the object of insane boss Armie Hammer’s approval.

Meanwhile, women’s films are also taking center stage at the festival in the year of #MeToo and #TimesUp. A full 43 female directors have joined the lineup across sections in the feature-film categories. If you include short films in the count, 42 percent of Sundance directors are female this year, a festival spokesperson told TheWrap.

Among them are Cathy Yan’s notable “Dead Pigs,” a mosaic of stories set against a 2013 phenomenon when 16,000 dead pigs surfaced in Shanghai’s Huangpu River In the film, Yanexplores the isolation she felt growing up in both China and the U.S.

Elizabeth Chomko’s writer-director debut “What They Had” explores Alzheimer’s with the help of Blythe Danner and Hilary Swank. Sara Colangelo also made waves as a writer-director with “The Kindergarten Teacher,” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, about a woman teetering between her conventional life and her passion for art.

Other films directed by men often as not put women front and center. Wash Westmoreland’s “Colette,” with a towering performance by Kiera Knightley as the feminist icon, was one of two set in the 1890s, a time of tumultuous cultural, economic and political change. (The film sold to Bleecker Street and 30West in one if the few deals in the festival so far; more on that in a moment.)

The other was “Lizzie,” about hatchet-wielding Lizzie Borden (Chloe Sevigny), who did her nefarious deed in 1892. Both manage to set the stage for modern womanhood and the complicated world of contemporary feminism.

In Paul Dano’s directorial debut, the austere Richard Ford adaptation “Wildlife,” Carey Mulligan is raw and riveting as a Montana housewife chafing against the restrictions placed on women in the early 1960s. In Jesse Peretz’s “Juliet, Naked,” Rose Byrne is utterly charming and affecting as her character tries to find independence (while sort-of romancing a reclusive American rock star) in a small British town.

The Sundance documentary slate is once again a strong point, with “The Price of Everything,” “The Sentence,” “Three Identical Strangers,” “Believer,” “Robin Williams: Inside My Mind” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” among the many docs that have drawn praise.

Perhaps none of the films hit the level of unanimous raves prompted by recent-year Sundance hits like “Call Me by Your Name,” “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” but quality seems to have reached a high.

Still, sales have initially proved chilly. As TheWrap predicted walking into Sundance, buyers are more cautious than ever thanks to multiple factors. Indie institutions like Fox Searchlight (recently acquired by Disney) and Focus Features are facing tough competition from the deep-pockets of streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon, though deal-makers have begun to resist the worldwide exclusivity the streamers demand for their subscribers.

Discounting pre-sold titles (mostly docs), the biggest deal to close so far has been for “Colette,” which sold for seven figures on Sunday to Bleecker Street and 30West. But that sale was followed by the bidding war for “Blindspotting,” as buyers may begin to open their wallets as the opening weekend closes.

But money remains tight. Producers are better fed from the money they raise on international sales, one top dealmaker told TheWrap in Park City, but increasingly cannot convince the streaming giants to accept only North American rights. In addition, many in the marketare wary after the #MeToo movement has claimed several casualties in the indie market, with deals unraveling for Louis C.K.’s “I Love You, Daddy” and Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me 2: Holy Chicken” after their filmmakers faced misconduct accusations.

The market would be wise to wake up to the caliber of films in Park City this year. They reveal a conscious nurturing of diverse voices, which can only serve our industry and audiences as they are heard, financed, produced and distributed.

In the words of Jane Fonda, addressing a Park City crowd at this year’s Respect Rally, thrown by the organizers of last year’s Women’s March: “This kind of change doesn’t just come about through protest. It comes through organizing.”

First-time feature director Cathy Yan is on hand at the Sundance Film Festival with her project, Dead Pigs. The pic is set in modern China, between Shanghai and the provincial town of Jiaxing, and centers on five eccentric people and how their stories intersect over the course of a few weeks as dead pigs float towards Shanghai and ultimately converge in a dramatic showdown between human and machine.
“I had been thinking about making a film back in China… I just felt that…

First-time filmmaker Cathy Yan’s time in China as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has led to Dead Pigs, which is set to play in the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition section.
The film, set between Shanghai and the provincial town of Jiaxing and with a cast including Vivian Wn, Zazie Beetz and David Rysdahl, has its world premiere Friday at the Prospector Square Theatre in Park City. CAA is repping U.S. sales and Media Asia has…