Wonder Woman is a very good movie. Wonder Woman is also a huge hit at the box office (opening with well over $100 million domestic, and nearly $230 million worldwide). And it would be understandable if this were seen by some as an unlikely underdog scenario.
In spite of Diana Prince being one of the most recognizable superheroes on the planet, in spite of director Patty Jenkins being responsible for the critically-acclaimed box office success Monster (which netted Charlize Theron an Oscar), in spite of growing demand for female superheroes to get exactly this opportunity, this wasn’t seen as the sort of relatively safe and sure bet that many other comic heroes were deemed (we got an Ant-Man movie before this one — ANT-MAN). Which is pretty messed up, and the sexism behind those assumptions could be a whole other thing.
But, ok, Wonder Woman is a hit, making big league money, garnering near-universal critical acclaim, and instantly becoming a cultural touchstone. A generation is going to grow up with this as one of their formative film experiences, and No Man’s Land is already one of the iconic sequences in the entire history of the genre.
So, now what?
First, some perspective. Which comes with the disclaimer that, no, box office doesn’t actually “matter” to a film’s worth, but can be an important part of the conversation around a film’s impact. Now, Wonder Woman’s $103 million opening weekend haul is not the first time that a movie has hit that particular milestone (an amount that used to be rare for a film to make during its entire run), or even the first superhero movie to make that much over its first 3 days.
However, for comparison, only 3* other superheroes have ever had their introductory feature film open at or above $100 million:
- Spider-Man
- Deadpool
- Superman
(*Sidebar: including Superman is cheating, given that there were 5 Superman movies prior to the Man of Steel reboot. Additionally, Suicide Squad also opened higher, but was a group film like The Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy and therefore a different thing. Splitting the difference.)
So, this isn’t just the best opening for a female superhero movie, or for a film helmed by a female director. Those are awesome milestones to clear, but focusing solely on them almost seems to lessen the impact of what this film accomplished. Because Diana of Themyscira had a better debut than the first films for (for starters):
- Batman
- Iron Man
- Captain America
- Thor
- Hulk
- Wolverine (hell, ALL the X-Men)
Every one of these characters came to the big screen years or even decades before Wonder Woman, some of them in multiple incarnations, and Diana spanked them all. Now, I’ll grant that she had something of a backdoor introduction via her cameo in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but given that was a bit part in a movie that not a lot of people recall all that fondly, and given the change in focus and time period for her movie, there was still a lot of skepticism at play (given the drubbing of other female-led comic book properties like Catwoman and Elektra, as well as this year’s high-profile genre bust Ghost in the Shell). It’s hardly fair for a Wonder Woman movie to have to shoulder those burdens, but this production couldn’t stop being conflated with them regardless. This was the character’s proving ground, and she crushed it like a cheap tank. I’d argue she may have had a similar amount of “baggage” (earned or not) that the Caped Crusader faced before Batman Begins came out, and Wonder Woman is going to outpace that film’s lifetime gross in less than a fortnight.
And not to mince words, but if a male director with a similar set of hurdles had pulled off what director Patty Jenkins did, the industry would be bending over backwards to make it happen again, by any means necessary. And I’m not just talking about WB (smartly) signing Jenkins on for the inevitable sequel, because that’s literally the least they should be doing.
For comparison, Wonder Woman cost nearly $80 million less than Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and will likely end up making more. Now, I’m not here to drag Snyder — I like a lot of the guy’s work and wish him and his family nothing but happiness and healing. But Man of Steel was not the unqualified mega-success Warner Bros. thought it would be (which is why Batman got stuffed into the sequel almost immediately). Still, who did WB pick to direct the follow-up movie? Zack Snyder. And when Batman v Superman was eviscerated by critics, divided fans, and disappointed at the box office (oh, it made some bread, but the first big screen meeting between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel falling short of a remake of The Jungle Book is…not a great look), who did WB stick with to direct the big Justice League team-up? Zack Snyder.
Again, I’m not here to kick the dude when he’s down, but the simple fact is that Snyder has not made a genuine no-qualifiers success for the studio in more than ten years, and since 300 he’s actually made 2 legitimate box office disappointments. But he kept getting asked back anyway.
So why bring this up? Well, now that there’s a new star player in town, I say they should get at least the same level of treatment.
Not to be blunt, but Warner should be falling over themselves to offer Jenkins any project she might want and writing blank checks for her budgets just like they did with Nolan after he made The Dark Knight. Not only should she get to do whatever she damn well pleases with Wonder Woman 2: Diana Eats Hitler’s Ice Cream, but she should also have first refusal on the sequel to Justice League (ya know, considering that her film has single-handedly restored confidence in the DC Extended Universe). Looking beyond that — Jenkins should be swimming in options from everywhere. Warner should be bringing her gilded offerings to make certain she doesn’t get poached by rival studios.
Speaking of, MARVEL should be on the phone yesterday, begging Patty Jenkins for forgiveness for not meeting her halfway on Thor: The Dark World (which she walked away from because of “creative differences”). Fox should be chasing after her to relaunch the X-men films with a fully-powered Rogue as the lead. Hell, Jenkins should have to hire Gal Gadot as a full-time bodyguard to beat back her would-be employers like Homer Simpson carrying Mark Hamill through a Star Wars convention.
(Also, she should definitely be getting a back-end of Wonder Woman’s profits, Robert Downey Jr.-style — like, I really hope that’s a thing.)
AND I AIN’T EVEN DONE YET. Since constant hand-wringing in the industry and entertainment press over whether or not a woman-led or woman-directed genre movie can succeed has been used to prop up the delays in a character as well-known as Wonder Woman getting her own film, let’s go ahead and cut that shit out right the hell now. Like, forever. After this, I want every other lady director who ever made an Oscar-nominated film to get snapped up. Let’s see every woman who ever made an indie darling start getting offered $100+ million franchise gigs just like all the dudes who had a small-budget movie show at Cannes and then made blockbusters immediately afterwards. Let’s see Karyn Kusama’s Ms. Marvel, Jennifer Kent’s Catwoman, Angelina Jolie’s Valkyrie, and a dozen more. Heck, Michelle MacLaren probably has at least as much directing experience as J. J. Abrams did when he was given $150 million for Mission: Impossible III, so why not give her Miss Martian?
AND FOR THE LOVE OF CREPES, DO A GOT DANG BLACK WIDOW MOVIE ALREADY. Kathryn Bigelow’s probably too expensive, but we can dream.
That’s just the behind-the-camera stuff — in a just world, Robin Wright would be starting the same the “later career aging badass” action period enjoyed by Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis.
Because Wonder Woman didn’t just prove that super heroines can sell tickets or that women directors can make great blockbusters — with 53% of audiences last weekend being women, it exposed the lie that “women don’t care about superhero movies” pretty definitively. So, it’s time to stop pretending. It’s time to stop acting like it makes sense that we’re on our third Spider-Man series but have never had a Batgirl film, or that it’s logical for Gareth Edwards to go from the micro-budget Monsters to the $160 million budget of Godzilla while Jenkins is treated as a gamble. And perhaps most importantly, this movie and its director show that, if you want to ensure that Hollywood’s most profitable blanket genre doesn’t run out of gas, the answer may lie not in endless reboots or forced, empty team-ups, but in ensuring that you’re not limiting yourself to literally half the options available (both in front of and behind the camera) because of gender.
All the world world was waiting for this movie. And now that they’ve seen it, they probably won’t be nearly as patient going forward.
