I'd Pay to See Kathryn Bigelow Direct Wonder Woman - Would You?

[Locutus of Bored]

I'd pay to see Bigelow's version of Wonder Woman right now.

I'm sorry to see Mimi Leder's name didn't get a shout out in the article. Granted, she's been out of the major motion picture business since 2000 (sticking to TV since then and one low budget film), but I thought she was an excellent action and dramatic director with The Peacemaker (very underrated, IMO), Deep Impact, and Pay it Forward. She obviously doesn't have the same visibility as Bigelow at the moment (who I think would be an excellent WW director as well), but I think she'd be good alternative. Plus, I'd love to see her back directing films again.

 

[PsychoPere]

I've only seen three of Bigelow's films (Near Dark, The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty), but at this point I'd gladly pay to see anything she does. I have no real preference for what types of films she should continue to do. Her deciding that a particular film is interesting enough to give her attention to is enough for me.

 

[Pingfah]

Oh, I'm guessing you are a sci-fi fan, being as where we are. You should definitely see Strange Days. It's a dark, sprawling cyberpunk thriller, superb film IMO.

 

[ITL]

Oh, I'm guessing you are a sci-fi fan, being as where we are. You should definitely see Strange Days. It's a dark, sprawling cyberpunk thriller, superb film IMO.

I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. Loved it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So I was cataloguing my shit, and I cue up zero dark thirty to make sure everything was consistent and in sync... What? That's weird... What's Elvis doing here and... I wound to the credits... OH! It's a parody/farce called Zero Dark Dirty.

I need new glasses.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Well, I must not agree. In the past three years, we've had X-Men: First Class, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Iron Man 3 - all first-rate flicks. Sure, there've been some disappointments also (Green Lantern, TDKR, MOS), but, financially speaking, only GL was a box-office failure. I can easily rattle off more would-be top-tier non-superhero flops: Cowboys and Aliens, John Carter, Battleship, White House Down, Lone Ranger... There may come a time to say that the superhero genre (to the extent that it even is a genre) needs fresh blood, but from both creative and business perspectives, now is not at all that time.

I don't think she was saying from a business perspective superheroes need a change, but from a creative perspective, yeah. I love superheroes and I'm bored out of my mind with them now because they're getting pretty repetitive. Didn't see Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man 2 or 3, watched X-Men First Class during a free Epix preview on instant streaming and am pretty sure I'm not going to bother on the new Wolverine, even if it does feature Hugh Jackman half naked. I only went to see MoS because the controversy over it caught my interest and am still wishing I'd skipped Dark Knight Rises. The genre really may have topped out on Avengers. Which isn't to say there won't be any interesting superhero movies made ever again, but chances are we're going to see a lot more of the same until it all peters out in favor of some new fashion.

Indeed, what's really remarkable is the fact that there's not one high-profile, A-list-fueled rom-com on the docket all year... but something tells me this Susan Wloszczyna won't soon be writing a piece on how male voices ought to swoop in and rescue that flailing genre.

Rom com is a perenniel genre, not a momentary ascendency subgenre of action pictures like superhero movies are. As for not one high-profile, A-list fueled rom-coms this year, um??

Admission - Tina Fey, Paul Rudd
The Host - Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, William Hurt
The Big Wedding - DeNiro, Keaton, Katherine Heigel
About Time - Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
The Best Man 2 - Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Nia Long
The Third Person - Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Olivia Wilde
Are We Officially Dating - Zac Ephron, Imogen Poots
The Last Drop - Justin Timberlake
Can a Song Save Your Life? - Keira Knightly, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine

Don't get me wrong; I'd be all for superhero movies starring and/or directed by women, but to say that the genre needs "rescuring", as Wloszczyna does, is that feminist's wishful thinking.

She means rescuing from its own tedious repetitiveness, which is starting to wear thin. That may not be readily apparent to hardcore superhero fans such as frequent this forum, and yes, they're still making plenty of money but any action adventure pictures pushed the way studios push superhero movies are going to make money. Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds made money. But I don't think too many people are going to claim it was a particularly intersting sci fi film.

I think the single-biggest difficulty in adapting Wonder Woman (apart from studios' anxiety around tentpole films starring women) is the lack of a real comics consensus on her mythos. Dating back to her creator, Diana's best runs have generally been very specific to the vision of the author (George Perez, Greg Rucka, etc.), and haven't had tremendous success in defining a status quo for others to use (Perez and Rucka were both followed by writers who immediately dismantled most of what they had focused on; or, in Rucka's case, he was compelled to do it himself). This results in things like the lack of a firm "home base" in the real world, almost no consistent supporting characters, and a rogue's gallery has plenty of potential but which has never been properly developed.

I think you have something of a point except that the lack of a clearly defined mythos really just means WW is ripe to have someone do a big definitive take on film. WB just seems to lack the balls (talk about mixing metaphors...) to do that. I mean if we can go from Burton to Schumacher to Nolan with Batman, I think you could take the plunge one way or another on Wonder Woman.

To me the problem is that WW is much more charged culturally than the top tier male characters. They know that no matter what they do, the film will be parsed this way and that as the Most Iconic Female Superhero, and I imagine they let that get in the way of just telling a good story and letting the chips fall.

This "we won't make a female superhero a tentpole movie" is bullshit in the midst of The Hunger Games furor - I mean, really, come on guys, who do you think you're foolin'?

 

[CaptainCanada]

I think you have something of a point except that the lack of a clearly defined mythos really just means WW is ripe to have someone do a big definitive take on film. WB just seems to lack the balls (talk about mixing metaphors...) to do that.

That's definitely true in theory. I think the WB's reluctance relates to them wanting some sort of guidance from the comics on what people are looking for in Wonder Woman, but the comics have never produced a consensus on that point.

 

[Dream]

I love superheroes and I'm bored out of my mind with them now because they're getting pretty repetitive. Didn't see Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man 2 or 3, watched X-Men First Class during a free Epix preview on instant streaming and am pretty sure I'm not going to bother on the new Wolverine, even if it does feature Hugh Jackman half naked. I only went to see MoS because the controversy over it caught my interest and am still wishing I'd skipped Dark Knight Rises. The genre really may have topped out on Avengers. Which isn't to say there won't be any interesting superhero movies made ever again, but chances are we're going to see a lot more of the same until it all peters out in favor of some new fashion.

Enjoy the this golden era of superhero movies while it lasts. I doubt we will be getting three big budget superhero movies per year forever. When that time comes, I hope you don't start complaining about the lack of superhero movies being released.

 

[JD]

Well, I must not agree. In the past three years, we've had X-Men: First Class, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Iron Man 3 - all first-rate flicks. Sure, there've been some disappointments also (Green Lantern, TDKR, MOS), but, financially speaking, only GL was a box-office failure. I can easily rattle off more would-be top-tier non-superhero flops: Cowboys and Aliens, John Carter, Battleship, White House Down, Lone Ranger... There may come a time to say that the superhero genre (to the extent that it even is a genre) needs fresh blood, but from both creative and business perspectives, now is not at all that time.

I don't think she was saying from a business perspective superheroes need a change, but from a creative perspective, yeah. I love superheroes and I'm bored out of my mind with them now because they're getting pretty repetitive. Didn't see Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man 2 or 3, watched X-Men First Class during a free Epix preview on instant streaming and am pretty sure I'm not going to bother on the new Wolverine, even if it does feature Hugh Jackman half naked. I only went to see MoS because the controversy over it caught my interest and am still wishing I'd skipped Dark Knight Rises. The genre really may have topped out on Avengers. Which isn't to say there won't be any interesting superhero movies made ever again, but chances are we're going to see a lot more of the same until it all peters out in favor of some new fashion.

Indeed, what's really remarkable is the fact that there's not one high-profile, A-list-fueled rom-com on the docket all year... but something tells me this Susan Wloszczyna won't soon be writing a piece on how male voices ought to swoop in and rescue that flailing genre.

Rom com is a perenniel genre, not a momentary ascendency subgenre of action pictures like superhero movies are. As for not one high-profile, A-list fueled rom-coms this year, um??

Admission - Tina Fey, Paul Rudd
The Host - Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, William Hurt
The Big Wedding - DeNiro, Keaton, Katherine Heigel
About Time - Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
The Best Man 2 - Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Nia Long
The Third Person - Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Olivia Wilde
Are We Officially Dating - Zac Ephron, Imogen Poots
The Last Drop - Justin Timberlake
Can a Song Save Your Life? - Keira Knightly, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine

The Host was a rom-com?

 

[Dream]

I think you have something of a point except that the lack of a clearly defined mythos really just means WW is ripe to have someone do a big definitive take on film. WB just seems to lack the balls (talk about mixing metaphors...) to do that.

That's definitely true in theory. I think the WB's reluctance relates to them wanting some sort of guidance from the comics on what people are looking for in Wonder Woman, but the comics have never produced a consensus on that point.

They should pick and choose the best aspects of WW from the comics and use it for the movie. Better to fail than not to even try. Who knows? We might get something even more interesting than the comics.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I think you have something of a point except that the lack of a clearly defined mythos really just means WW is ripe to have someone do a big definitive take on film. WB just seems to lack the balls (talk about mixing metaphors...) to do that.

That's definitely true in theory. I think the WB's reluctance relates to them wanting some sort of guidance from the comics on what people are looking for in Wonder Woman, but the comics have never produced a consensus on that point.

Too true - and that tends to be true of a lot of superheroines. But I think Dream is right - better to try something than nothing. And to point to previous outings, which just weren't very good movies, and say, see superheroines don't sell, is really annoying.

The Host was a rom-com?

Oops! Got me on that one - I was working off a list of romantic movies in 2013. Not so sure The Third person is a comedy either - it was written by Paul Haggis who also wrote Crash. But I should have caught the Host since I know what that is.

Enjoy the this golden era of superhero movies while it lasts. I doubt we will be getting three big budget superhero movies per year forever. When that time comes, I hope you don't start complaining about the lack of superhero movies being released.

I doubt I'll be complaining, at least I surely won't if they don't start varying the formula a bit. It could happen - MoS took a few risks with the Superman mythos. It's why I posted the article, I thought the suggestion of getting some unexpected directors' takes on superheroes was a good idea - though I don't really think it breaks down so easily along gender lines.

 

[Guy Gardener]

There's a lot of comics which are mostly in conflict or outright shit.

I got through 15 minutes of Atlantic Rim, before the cheesy awfulness squeezed my soul by it's balls and... Imagine Wonder Woman, normal size fighting one of those massive sea monsters?

 

[Gaith]

I love superheroes and I'm bored out of my mind with them now because they're getting pretty repetitive. Didn't see Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man 2 or 3, watched X-Men First Class during a free Epix preview on instant streaming.... I only went to see MoS because the controversy over it caught my interest and am still wishing I'd skipped Dark Knight Rises.

You've got my sympathies on having sat through MOS and TDKR, but, given that you've skipped seeing four of the best superhero movies of recent years in theaters, I've kinda gotta call into question your superhero love.

any action adventure pictures pushed the way studios push superhero movies are going to make money. Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds made money. But I don't think too many people are going to claim it was a particularly intersting sci fi film.

That was a movie with strong title recognition, directed by the world's most successful director, and featuring the world's biggest movie star - hardly your average actioner. And big studio pushes didn't exactly help The Lone Ranger, White House Down, Battleship, Speed Racer, Robin Hood, or a number of other non-superhero movies from recent years.

This "we won't make a female superhero a tentpole movie" is bullshit in the midst of The Hunger Games furor - I mean, really, come on guys, who do you think you're foolin'?

I haven't seen or read any Hunger Games, but isn't the whole point of the story that Katniss isn't a superhero, but rather a more or less ordinary girl (albeit with mad archery skills) forced into a situation that makes her famous? That's a very long ways off from your standard Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Clark Kent learning he's magically powerful, and even farther from a princess and daughter of Zeus born and raised on a mythical island unknown to the rest of humanity. Or do you actually think Hunger Games would have been just as big a hit if Katniss could easily beat up a dozen guys at once?

 

[Agent Richard07]

I saw The Host last week and enjoyed it quite a bit. Good scifi, great lead and it was visually stunning. And the romantic angle that might have people concerned is hardly there.

As for Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises, I thought those were among the best superhero movies to come out over the last decade because they were anything but "more of the same". Even a year later I don't have a full understanding of why The Avengers is so popular. As entertaining as it was, it's the epitome of "more of the same".

 

[Kegg]

That Katniss isn't a superhero is not the point. She is the star of a genre action movie that made a tidy - and enviable - bit of money. She shows there's an audience that will accept movies about women kicking ass and taking names in a SF&F setting, an audience that probably overlaps with superhero films anyway and, if it doesn't, it'd be smart to entice over.

You know, four quadrants and all that.

You've got my sympathies on having sat through MOS and TDKR, but, given that you've skipped seeing four of the best superhero movies of recent years in theaters, I've kinda gotta call into question your superhero love.

Kind of silly surely. I imagine most people who consider themselves superhero fans read superhero comics and perhaps do not need to 'prove' themselves by spending money to see what Joss Whedon or Zack Snyder or whomever has done to these titles.

There is something to be said for unexpected directors in this genre. The reason I even bothered to see Hulk or the first Hellboy movie was due to Ang Lee and Guillermo del Toro, respectively, and while the first one wasn't great, del Toro clearly was having a fair bit of fantastic fun with both Hellboy features.

 

[Hound of UIster]

I saw The Host last week and enjoyed it quite a bit. Good scifi, great lead and it was visually stunning. And the romantic angle that might have people concerned is hardly there.

As for Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises, I thought those were among the best superhero movies to come out over the last decade because they were anything but "more of the same". Even a year later I don't have a full understanding of why The Avengers is so popular. As entertaining as it was, it's the epitome of "more of the same".

Because Avengers is very much a carnival show and sold itself on the coolness of all these A-list characters from multiple Marvel movies showing up and teaming up. TDKR and MoS at least tried to be a little bit more ambitious.

 

[Gaith]

That Katniss isn't a superhero is not the point. She is the star of a genre action movie that made a tidy - and enviable - bit of money.

According to Box Office Mojo, The Hunger Games had a budget of $80m. Compare that to $150m for the modestly-budgeted (among supero flicks) Thor, and I think you'll see that the fact that THG isn't a superhero movie is very germane to this dicussion.

She shows there's an audience that will accept movies about women kicking ass and taking names in a SF&F setting

Let's not forget that the HG films are based on a series of well-known, mega-selling books, unlike Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, BloodRayne, Hanna, Elektra, The Host, and Beautiful Creatures, all of which underperformed-to-flopped. Add The Golden Compass and Catwoman in, and it becomes clear that for every Hunger Games and Underworld/Resident Evil female action SF/F success, there's one or two flops to balance them out. The simple fact is that unless you've got very strong brand awareness built-in, through blockbuster books or a popular video game series, female-led SF/F movies have had a very spotty B.O. record so far.

an audience that probably overlaps with superhero films anyway and, if it doesn't, it'd be smart to entice over.

You know, four quadrants and all that.

Opening weekend crowds for The Avengers and Iron Man 3 were both about 40% female, and 50% over 25. In other words, male-dominated superher movies already hit the four quadrants just fine.


... Again, I'm not at all opposed to quality female-centric superhero movies. But let's not kid ourselves: while it may be a rich and untapped market, there's plenty of precedent suggesting it probably isn't.

 

[Kegg]

That Katniss isn't a superhero is not the point. She is the star of a genre action movie that made a tidy - and enviable - bit of money.

According to Box Office Mojo, The Hunger Games had a budget of $80m. Compare that to $150m for the modestly-budgeted (among supero flicks) Thor, and I think you'll see that the fact that THG isn't a superhero movie is very germane to this dicussion.

I don't see how (other than it's absurd Thor had that much money), unless you're suggesting all superhero movies need stupid amounts of money to be made. Since there have been lower budget superhero films and indie films and so on I'm not sure, not every picture need go for Man of Steel style planet annihilation.

Let's not forget that the HG films are based on a series of well-known, mega-selling books, unlike Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, BloodRayne, Hanna, Elektra, The Host, and Beautiful Creatures, all of which underperformed-to-flopped. Add The Golden Compass and Catwoman in, and it becomes clear that for every Hunger Games and Underworld/Resident Evil female action SF/F success, there's one or two flops to balance them out.

There are tons of high profile flops with male leads - hell, there were two last year that starred Taylor Kitsch! Add this to the success of the Twilight movies, Host, etc. and there's clearly an audience for female oriented genre movies.

Wonder Woman, Black Widow and Catwoman are all characters that could be marketed in that way and also are in the latter two cases well known with high profile actresses having played them in blockbuster films already.

You're right they probably won't. And I can sleep easier ignoring the whole craze entirely.

 

[Harvey]

Let's not forget that the HG films are based on a series of well-known, mega-selling books, unlike Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, BloodRayne, Hanna, Elektra, The Host, and Beautiful Creatures, all of which underperformed-to-flopped.

I was under the impression that The Host, Beautiful Creatures, and The Golden Compass were all fairly popular young adult books and/or series. That didn't help them at the box office, though.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I was under the impression that The Host, Beautiful Creatures, and The Golden Compass were all fairly popular young adult books and/or series. That didn't help them at the box office, though.

They are, particularly the last two. The Hunger Games honestly wasn't even that huge prior to the movies, I don't think. It was popular, but not a Harry Potter-level thing. Merely having a popular source material isn't a guarantee of anything.

According to Box Office Mojo, The Hunger Games had a budget of $80m.

So? The sequels are going to cost a lot more than that.