DC and Warner Bros set the internet ablaze when DC when they announced Gal Gadot (Fast and Furious) had snagged the role of Wonder Woman in the upcoming Batman/Superman movie back in early December.
While fans are excited (if wary) to finally see the Amazonian Princess on the big screen for the first time ever, the decision to include Wonder Woman in a movie with a Batman/Superman title card begs the question: where is Wonder Woman’s own movie?
So we have our question, now where’s our answer? Let’s begin with the first reason why there has yet to be no Wonder Woman solo movie to date.
5: The Costume
Wonder Woman has an unfortunate ironic costume. It’s been tailored over the years, first appearing in the fifties with a tube top and a long blue skirt. The costume made a very obvious play on the America Flag including the colors of red, white and blue, and even included stars on the skirt, A skirt which eventually turned into a combination of short shorts and a bathing suit bottom. Depending on the artist, the outfit can be either realistic and fitting, or campy and ridiculous. However, this goes for all superheroes whose original costumes have a campy flare to them. For instance, Superman’s original costume included bright red underpants on the outside to go with his bright blue costume.
If you’ve seen the new Man of Steel movie, which models the new Superman costume of DC’s reboot, the red underwear is sadly no more. Costumes for superheroes now have a slicker, heavier, and more realistic look to them. Which is apparently one of the reasons why studios are reluctant to try their hand at a Wonder Woman movie.
How can they take that campy costume and turn it into something realistic and not laughable?
Well, what’s laughable is that they’re having such a hard time with this. Back when a very badly done pilot for a new Wonder Woman show hit the press, one of the biggest failures was the re-imagining of the costume. Yes they included pants, but the studding on stars, the shiny faux leather red tube top and a thoroughly plastic looking tiara made it even worse. What’s truly ironic is that the porn interpretation and countless fan interpretations look vastly better and more realistic.
CW has been making a living off of taking DC heroes and selling them to the 18-25 market. The start of this success was Smallville which told the story of a young Clark Kent and his journey in becoming the Man of Steel. Most recently it’s been Arrow, depicting the story of Star City’s Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow, and upcoming is Flash, telling the story of, you guessed it, Barry Allen the first Flash. .
So this begs the question, if studios can take the costumes of these characters, transform and update them for modern day audiences, why can’t they do the same for Wonder Woman?
4: She’s Complicated
DC’s president, Diane Nelson, stated at this summer’s Comic Con that “she doesn’t have the single, clear, compelling story that everyone knows and recognizes.” Nelson recognizes that Diana is an icon for both women and men and has been something of a feminist icon for decades. This makes her apparently, according to Nelson, “tricky.”
Needless to say, her origin isn’t as well-known as Superman or Batman’s. Though how can it be when Wonder Woman has only had one TV show and two cartoon adaptions (one of which she was not the leading character but part of an ensemble), while Batman and Superman have each had nearly ten movies, multiple television shows (both cartoon and live action) and dominate DC’s animated movie department. Such a resume is hard to compete with.
No, the reason we know who characters like Superman and Batman are is because we’ve been repeatedly told their stories.
Could anyone recite Tony Stark’s story off the top of their head before Iron Man came out? Did anyone outside of Marvel comic fans know who Loki was before Thor? Yet today you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of Tony Stark or seen a piece of Iron Man merchandise in a store. Loki has skyrocketed in popularity so much so Marvel comics recently gave him his own solo title (to be released in February) and there are even rumors of a future movie spin-off.
So the excuse that Wonder Woman is simply too complicated to make a movie about is just that, an excuse.
3: Fans want an Action Packed Extravaganza!
There seems to be some misunderstanding going around that a movie starring Wonder Woman, or truthfully any female character just isn’t that interesting. Some people think Wonder Woman just doesn’t have enough action. That her character and her adventures wouldn’t bring in audiences and hold their attention for long periods of time.
Let me just say that Michael Bay’s Transformers: Rise of the Fallen has been heralded as one of the worst movies of all time. Even though it’s filled to the brim with top quality action sequences and the best money can buy CGI. Action doesn’t necessarily equal interesting.
While there was action in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, what made the movie so popular, both with critics and movie-goers alike, was the world building and the creativity involved in the film. Die Hard has lots of action, yet what resonated with people was John McClean’s character and how he was just an everyday cop who suffered and pushed through an extraordinary situation. Notice how the newer Die Hard movies are more action packed, with more explosions and flying helicopters than previous movies in the franchise. Yet they’re not nearly as well received.
Wonder Woman’s Greek inspired history already has something that potential audiences will be interested in. Troy, Clash of the Titans, The Immortals, Wrath of the Titans, 300, Alexander, The Eagle, and Disney’s Hercules, have all been movies based upon Greek culture and myth. They’re also about as accurate as Diana’s Greek/Roman inspired origin, she already has a hook that audience will latch on to. Even if people haven’t read a Greek myth in their lifetime, they’ve most certainly heard of the Amazons, Zeus, Hera, Hades, Hippolyta, and Artemis, all of whom are characters used in Wonder Woman’s story and origin to some extent.
If one has seen any of the previously listed movies, they’d know there’s lots of action in them. Meaning there should be no reason, especially considering Diana is a warrior princess, why there wouldn’t be action in a Wonder Woman movie as well.
2: Is Wonder Woman even an Interesting Character?
As with any story, what makes or break it is the writing. To say Diana is an uninteresting character while not bringing up the same so-called concern about Hal Jordon when his film was being pitched is just a bit ludicrous. Marvel is releasing Guardians of the Galaxy in the summer of 2014, a movie which stars a raccoon named Rocket Raccoon and a talking tree named Groot. Yet Wonder Woman with all her rich history and compelling books like League of One, The Hiketeia, and Eyes of the Gorgon just doesn’t have enough backstory to make her an interesting character on film?
It sounds more like studios find her stuffy and don’t want to touch the unavoidable feminist aspects of her character. Studios seem to picture a Wonder Woman movie as a two hour snore-fest of Diana shaking her finger at little boys like some 50s grandma, while going off on bra-burning rants about how awful men are.
Diana is a multifaceted character with pythons and layers just like Superman and Batman, though you’d sometimes be hard pressed to find such things in their newer, grittier incarnations. Wonder Woman is a bridge between the genders–she’s a princess, but also a warrior, she can be a lover, mother, and sister, she is gentle and yet merciless, her sense of moral code and dedication to justice may even surpass that of Superman. She is a god driven force of will who can also be a sense of inspiration and hope to people, mainly women and young girls.
It seems that all this talk about how Wonder Woman isn’t “interesting” is really just a cover-up for the fact people either can’t write interesting, layered female characters, or just don’t want to.
1: Women Don’t Sell
This here is probably the biggest reason there hasn’t been any female superhero movies since the flops that were Elektra and Catwoman. Studios seem steadfast in believing female characters simply don’t sell that well to mainstream audiences.
One of the top grossest comedies of 2011 was Bridesmaids, which starred an all-female cast of relatively unknown actresses. It also went on to be nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. Three of the highest grossing movies of 2013 (The Heat, Catching Fire, Gravity) starred women in their leading roles.
Even DC’s own animation departments’ talk of how badly their one Wonder Woman movie did range false when actual numbers were brought up. Which, according to The Numbers, a website dedicated to keeping track and tallying revenue from the box office to DVD/BLU-RAY sales, ranked fourth on DC’s animated movie list, beating out Batman: Under the Red Hood, Green Lantern: First Flight (Hal Jordon’s animated origin story), two Justice League movies, and All Star Superman among others.
Yet it’s Hal Jordon who gets two animated movies even though his original animated feature. It could be argued that because Wonder Woman got off to such a slow start in the sales (though the lack of overall promotion probably didn’t help), Warner Bros claims of bad sales could be justifiable. Only slow sales don’t mean bad sales. Pacific Rim was the sleeper hit of the summer and it survived by pulling in multiple viewings through word of mouth. It was the highest grossing original screenplay movie (meaning it wasn’t a sequel or an adaption like most summer blockbusters) of the summer. It also happened to star a young Asian woman named Mako Mori, played by Rinko Kikichu, as one of its leads, which only brought in more viewers as female fans excitedly spread the word about a new female action superstar who happened to be Asian and was not a horrid stereotype.
Franchises such as Resident Evil, Underworld, and Tomb Raider all live on the backs of female characters and continue to be profitable. Cartoon shows like Legend of Korra consistently pull in ratings, and shows like Elementary and Sleepy Hollow, all of which star women of color as one of their leads, have become hits on their respective networks. The only reason Fifty Shades of Gray and Twilight became as popular as they did was because of the women and the young girls who supported the series. You could argue quality, but if companies truly cared about quality we wouldn’t have to suffer through another Transformers movie.
Overall it is obvious that the myth that women don’t buy, and female characters don’t sell, is just that, myth.
So in the end what is the real reason for why studios won’t produce a Wonder Woman, or any female superhero movie for that matter? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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