A couple weeks back, Birds of Prey star Margot Robbie revealed with a photo of the script title page that the film’s full title would actually be Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). And it made sense from a marketing perspective. While many fans didn’t care for Suicide Squad, Robbie’s interpretation of Harley Quinn was widely liked, so why not capitalize on that?

In fact, it’s because of this that even some of us here at LRM were a bit perturbed by it. Nothing really highlighted the cynicism as much as them doubling down on a character poised to raise the box office of their film. “Harley’s not in the title? We’ll force it, then. That way audiences know to turn out.” At least that’s how it felt.

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Speaking with Collider, Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson revealed that she was the one who came up with that ridiculous title:

“I don’t know if I’m officially allowed to say, but there’s no reason why not. It was an unofficial aka, when I wrote the script. I added it about a year or so ago, almost exactly as it is, just as an aka. I didn’t think we’d ever use it. We’d always used a working title, so I just had it as a cheeky little thing, on the front cover. And then, when we were talking about a title and brainstorming, we all kept drifting back to that one.”

So there you go. In spite of how it seems, it doesn’t look like it was a mandate sent down from on how from their marketing department, but just a funny in-joke from the writer of the film — one the studio likely knew would play well with mainstream audiences.

It may be a minor thing, but it is nice to know that things like this aren’t always the result of the data-driven hive-mind at the studio.

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SOURCE: Collider