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NEVER has a movie seen a more star-stacked female cast than Ocean’s 8.

You’ve got Cate Blanchett, Sandra

Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling and Awkwafina, not to mention a whole Met Gala-full of celeb cameos (no spoilers here).

Yet not even Hollywood heavyweights Bullock and Blanchett believed that a female-led heist film would ever get financed.

Speaking to reporters at the Met in New York City, the Aussie actress confessed when she first heard about the concept behind the latest iteration in the Ocean’s franchise, it seemed like “an impossibility”.

“Two or three years ago this seemed like an impossibility, like how could you possibly get this made?” Blanchett recalled.

“And it’s so great that it’s being released now. We go, ‘Well, of course’. A lot has shifted I think,” the Academy Award winner said.

When news of the female-led reboot first surfaced last year, an inevitable online backlash followed. Did the world really need another Ocean’s spin-off, particularly one that doesn’t feature Matt Damon, George Clooney or Brad Pitt? The answer is yes. Director and writer Gary Ross revealed he first dreamt up the idea for the flipped script with his “A team” five or six years ago and immediately got to work locking in Bullock to play criminal Debbie Ocean (the estranged sister of George Clooney’s Danny Ocean).

“I realised that there’d never been this kind of ensemble, there’d never been this kind of kick-ass ensemble of women coming together like this before and I thought that was easy,” Ross said.