Kegg wrote:
Gotham Central wrote:
The feeling in Hollywood is that female superheroes imply do not have the built in audience that the male characters have.
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Like Iron Dude and Space Ring Guy?
Because I'd never heard of those characters before they got movies, and I'm pretty sure Iron Man's success owed a lot to having Robert Downey Jr. in the lead visibly having a good time, being sold as a fun blockbuster with a bankable cast and so on (and I still think this reflects my befuddlement over the existence of a Green Lantern movie better than anything I could actually say). |
You may not have known who Green Lantern and Iron Man are, but they had a long position in the popular culture in comics, animation and generations of merchandising--the latter being the pop cultural glue connecting them to memory even at a time when no films or TV series are in production.
Now, if you were talking about a Blue Beetle movie, then....
Conversely, I did know who Wonder Woman is, if only by cultural osmosis.
The logic has nothing to do with brand recognition and everything to do with the belief that people won't go see action movies starring women.
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I find this partially false: the original
Alien movie series was headlined by a woman who managed to overcome the odds when her male counterparts ended up as hosts for Facehuggers. Even
Alien vs. Predator had a female protagonist/survivor in a story where male energy would have been expected.
Then there's the
Resident Evil film series which overdoses on action--but the star is female, and the most memorable supporting characters are as well.
Inarguably, WW is more culturally relevant/known than the characters of
Alien or
RE, enjoyed a popular live action TV series, and has been a part of
every animated DC group TV series produced since the original
Super Friends from 1973.
That said, I cannot believe WW not being supported as a film has anything to do with an avoidance of promiting a female action hero.