DCEU’s Birds of Prey very nearly featured a hilarious NSFW weapon in the film’s prison fight scene. Despite Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) outselling Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad in presale tickets, reportedly becoming the third-best DC film for presales, Margot Robbie’s return as Harley Quinn still ultimately failed by grossing the lowest DCEU opening in the last decade. Thanks to its recent release in Japan, the comic book tale is hovering around a $200 million worldwide total, but unfortunately, that hasn’t made the film a financial success. However, despite the flaws in the film’s marketing and a disappointing box office run, Cathy Yan’s team of females did get a lot of appreciation from critics and audiences.
A lot of the praise for Yan’s Birds of Prey revolved around some of the bombastic choices and the highly entertaining action scenes. The action scenes are not only brutal and in your face, fitting for its R rating, but it brilliantly highlights individual character traits, something Yan told Screen Rant about before the film’s release. A perfect example of this is when Harley Quinn is in the evidence room at the police station, and she is hiding behind a pile of cocaine. While being shot at, she breathes in some of the cocaine, which almost gives her new life, and she then proceeds to beat up the bad guys with her baseball bat. The combination of the absurd and gritty action worked, but according to director Yan, there could have been more wild moments in that prison scene.
RELATED: Birds Of Prey Was A Box Office Disappointment (But Can It Be Saved?)
In an interview with Empire, Yan discussed the action scene in the evidence room, and she said that they “had so many different ideas” for that particular scene. According to Yan, the film’s writer Christina Hodson “wanted a giant double-ended dildo that (Harley) had to fend off.” The director even explained how she wanted to give Harley “a big fluffy bear stuffed with drugs that she used as a pillow to fight with.” Although in the interview, Yan does note that they “had to show some sort of restraint,” despite it being “a cheeky movie.”
Undoubtedly, Harley Quinn fighting off a “giant double-ended dildo” would have made for quite the visual, and likely led to a lot of laughs from audience members as well. It could have also been a unique way of expressing the theme of the film’s women battling against their male foes. Understandably, there has to be a balance with the filmmakers, as they cannot lose sight of the story and get too caught up with such crazy ideas. However, on this occasion, Yan and co. may have been better off running with Hodson’s idea.
The idea for the NSFW weapon does also bring up the R rating argument, which experts listed as one of the reasons Birds of Prey failed to bring in big numbers at the box office. Although considering the world and the outlandish characters in the film, the R rating did give Yan and the team so much more to work with, as is evident by this idea that did not make it into the film. But for those that have not yet seen Birds of Prey, they can now watch it on VOD and make up their mind on whether the R rating was a problem or one of the more positive aspects of this DCEU project.
Source: Screenrant, by HUMZA HUSSAIN