Is WB simply afraid of Wonder Woman?

[Professor Zoom]

And as far as Buffy... Let's be honest.

It was by any account I've read a critical and commercial failure. Maybe some of the people with a better grasp on numbers can argue that it was a successful film, but my impression was that not even fans of the TV series that was based on it like it.

I was talking about the show, as Ian referenced it as a success.

Edited to add: And it looks like Tomb Raider's sequel only brought in 65 million domestically at the box office on a 90 million dollar budget.... OUCH. A good example of why they might be nervous to green light a Wonder Woman movie. Even a star like Jolie couldn't bring in people.

Again, though: a terrible movie and a sequel to a mediocre movie that people felt lukewarm about at best. Besides Jolie, the Tomb Raider movies did not have the kind of talent (and money) behind it that most of the Marvel movies or the Nolan Batman films do.

I still can't come up with a single female-led movie that was actually good, that had the kind of budget and talent behind it that most of the big superhero movies have, and failed at the box office. Making the "action movies starring women don't sell" argument on the basis of Tomb Raider 2, Elektra, and Catwoman is like making an argument against male-led superhero movies based on Ghost Rider 2 and Green Lantern.

Again, only brought up Tomb Raider because it was used as a "successful" example, and I'm refuting it

But even awful films make money (X Men Last Stand) and thus are considered successful.

 

[AvBaur]

But even awful films make money (X Men Last Stand) and thus are considered successful.

Yes, awful movies make a lot of money sometimes, but that's usually because they're sequels to hugely popular movies or because they offer the kind of visual spectacle that makes less discerning moviegoers forgive bad writing/acting etc. Both is true in the case of "X-Men: The Last Stand".

 

[Professor Zoom]

But even awful films make money (X Men Last Stand) and thus are considered successful.

Yes, awful movies make a lot of money sometimes, but that's usually because they're sequels to hugely popular movies or because they offer the kind of visual spectacle that makes less discerning moviegoers forgive bad writing/acting etc. Both is true in the case of "X-Men: The Last Stand".

True. But box office and quality aren't always related is my point, so saying movie X wasn't successful because its bad is besides the point. Lots of bad movies make money. Studios might be looking at the numbers of who is going to comic book movies, who the larger segment of the population is. And if its non comic book reading boys who don't want to see a woman lead, Wonder Woman ain't getting a big movie.

 

[JD]

Did anyone see Haywire? I know it didn't get that good of reviews, but I thought it looked pretty good, and it had a big name director (Steven Soderbergh), and some big names in the supporting cast (Micheal Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Micheal Douglas).

I've never understood what the problems are with female lead action movies. Is it just sexism or is there more to it? Personally, I love kick ass women and would be one of the first people in line for a good Ms. Marvel, or Wonder Woman movie.

 

[Ian Keldon]

I don't think he was talking about Buffy, the movie.

He mentioned it in conjunction with Tomb Raider, and when he referred to that I don't believe he was talking about the videogame. And since nobody else seemed to be addressing the movie directly I figured I'd point out its problem.

I did point out in my post that I was addressing Buffy as a TV property, not the movie.

 

[Gaith]

I've never understood what the problems are with female lead action movies. Is it just sexism or is there more to it?

I think a big part of the appeal of action movies in general is protagonist identification and wish fulfillment: when I see and Iron Man or a Bond movie, I get to pretend/wish I was the guy, beating up baddies, wielding awesome gadgets and getting the girls. But as rich and badass as, say, Jolie's Lara Croft is, I don't at any level, even a subconscious one, want to be her, because I'm fine with being a dude. And, if she gets in a romance with a dude... well, I don't want to be her then, either. Whereas when Bond asks Agent Fields to help him find the hotel stationery... that's a different story.


Now, I enjoy watching dramas, comedies, and other genres with leading female roles just fine. I loved Prometheus a I dug Hanna. But...

Personally, I love kick ass women and would be one of the first people in line for a good Ms. Marvel, or Wonder Woman movie.

I like strong female characters as much as anyone, but am not super-nuts about seeing superwomen kick and toss men around. Call that sexism if you like, I guess. I'd happily see a WW movie if the reviews were good enough, but I'm not clamoring for one.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

But as rich and badass as, say, Jolie's Lara Croft is, I don't at any level, even a subconscious one, want to be her, because I'm fine with being a dude.

I don't want to be British or a spy either, so why would I identify with James Bond, according to that logic?

 

[mswood]

Another really big issue, is that on tv females are by far the largest segment of the audience. In film its the reverse with Men driving ticket sales.

The Twilight movies have an amazing 80% female audience.

Maybe Warners will try to make a Wonder Woman movie for those people?

Yeah there are a few films that have had large success but they are few and far between and usually start on the extremely cheap side of film making.

You have a film like Momma Mia (very heavily female driven) that did major box office WW yet it was made fairly cheap.

Twilight and HUnger Games both (like Potter) were large successful and fairly recent book titles, and even so Twilight was made on an extremely low budget. Extremely low, and it felt like it. It felt like a TV movie not a motion picture.

Hunger Games was able to benefit from the huge success of Twilight, and get a descent but still not huge budget. But again that was not due to the concept but from the fact that they saw the huge amounts of money Twilight made, and they hoped it would be the next literary female driven series.

Wonder Women in written form has never even come close.

Like I said Perez's Wonder Women most likely only had its success due to his huge popularity and his hugely successful runs (by comics standards) of Teen Titans and Crisis. The current WW book which sales are good, though not great, certainly got a huge push from the restart of the DC.

But still a huge issue is who is WW? And very few in the business agree on it, let alone fans.

With the Twilight and Hunger Games series you have one voice telling us who the character is and that has been embraced by a large number of people.

Its makes a gamble a little easier to take. But even beloved books are a big gamble at the box office.

 

[AvBaur]

Yes, awful movies make a lot of money sometimes, but that's usually because they're sequels to hugely popular movies or because they offer the kind of visual spectacle that makes less discerning moviegoers forgive bad writing/acting etc. Both is true in the case of "X-Men: The Last Stand".

True. But box office and quality aren't always related is my point, so saying movie X wasn't successful because its bad is besides the point. Lots of bad movies make money.

What I'm saying, though, is that there's usually a good reason why awful movies make lots of money, and it's usually one (or both) of the two I've named. None of the many failed female-led action movies had either of those things going for them.


Do you guys seriously think Catwoman would have still flopped had it been as good as The Dark Knight, with the same kind of marketing push?

 

[Gaith]

But as rich and badass as, say, Jolie's Lara Croft is, I don't at any level, even a subconscious one, want to be her, because I'm fine with being a dude.

I don't want to be British or a spy either, so why would I identify with James Bond, according to that logic?

I fear you're over-literalizing. Movies are more akin to dreams/daydreams than reality. And when I dream, I prefer to be Indy than Lara; Bond than Bristow.

 

[sojourner]

And when I dream, I prefer to be Indy than Lara; Bond than Bristow.

To paraphrase the great Lou Reed, "try taking a walk on the wildside".

 

[Dream]

Do you guys seriously think Catwoman would have still flopped had it been as good as The Dark Knight, with the same kind of marketing push?

Batman is Batman. No superhero can compare to him in terms of popularity with the audience except for maybe Spider-man, but the crappy Spider-man 3 and mediocre reboot have harmed that brand.

The best I can see a Wonder Woman movie doing is around Thor or Captain America levels if it is good, but it could also easily fail as badly as the recent Green Lantern movie.

 

[AvBaur]

Do you guys seriously think Catwoman would have still flopped had it been as good as The Dark Knight, with the same kind of marketing push?

Batman is Batman. No superhero can compare to him in terms of popularity with the audience except for maybe Spider-man, but the crappy Spider-man 3 and mediocre reboot have harmed that brand.

Replace "The Dark Knight" with "Iron Man", then. Iron Man had arguably even less brand recognition than Wonder Woman (or Catwoman), but it wouldn't change my argument at all.

The best I can see a Wonder Woman movie doing is around Thor or Captain America levels if it is good, but it could also easily fail as badly as the recent Green Lantern movie.

I think WB would be perfectly happy if a WW movie did Thor/Captain America-size business. And the risk of failure exists for every movie, especially if the movie in question is/looks as bad as GL.

 

[Professor Zoom]

What I'm saying, though, is that there's usually a good reason why awful movies make lots of money, and it's usually one (or both) of the two I've named. None of the many failed female-led action movies had either of those things going for them.

Basically, your argument comes down to name recognition and being a part of a franchise. Which, arguably, Laura Croft was a part of. And it's not a BAD movie, like Catwoman. It's an ok movie. Like Thor. Or Iron Man 2.

Do you guys seriously think Catwoman would have still flopped had it been as good as The Dark Knight, with the same kind of marketing push?

Nothing was going to save it from those pants.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Somehow I saw the episode of Oprah with Halle before catwoman came out and they're both standing in front of a slightly larger than life poster of halle in full costume talking about how good she looks as Catwomen.

But seriously, Catwoman's nemesis was a 50 year old exmodel who was selling lethal make up, because she thought she would make a lot of money, even though all her customers were going to die and their families were going to sue her? That's not a job for Catwoman, that's a job for Errin Brockivich.

I still can't believe they wasted one of the greatest actresses of our times.

Alex Borstien.

"We don't care if you're funny as hell and all round magnificent, because we need an insecure fat girl who will just about kill her self to look a little thinner and younger, can you do that? I assume you can do that because you're fat and all fat people hate themselves."

 

[AvBaur]

What I'm saying, though, is that there's usually a good reason why awful movies make lots of money, and it's usually one (or both) of the two I've named. None of the many failed female-led action movies had either of those things going for them.

Basically, your argument comes down to name recognition and being a part of a franchise. Which, arguably, Laura Croft was a part of. And it's not a BAD movie, like Catwoman. It's an ok movie. Like Thor. Or Iron Man 2.

Tomb Raider 2 (which was really the one that failed - the 1st one did ok) wasn't quite as bad as Catwoman, but almost. And sequels only make big bucks if people really liked the previous movie. An imdb score of 5.5 for Tomb Raider 1 seems to point against that. (Iron Man 2: 7.1 / Thor: 7.0)


Here's my point: there just isn't any conclusive evidence that any of the big female-led flops failed because they starred women. All of them were lackluster movies, and you could tell that they weren't going to be any good from the trailers.

On the other hand, there are now a number of examples for popular genre movies starring women that did make a lot of money by actually appealing to female audiences, such as The Hunger Games, and the Twilight saga. There were even some that made a decent amount of money despite not being all that good/popular, like Snow White & the Huntsman, or Salt.

So when Hollywood executives and people here say that female-led movies don't sell, that's based on a double standard. As I said before, nobody would claim that the gender of the protagonist had anything to do with the failures of, say, Green Lantern, Battleship, or John Carter.

It may be true that there aren't a lot of successful examples of female-led action films, but there also aren't any examples (that I can think of) of such movies failing despite the high quality of the movies themselves and/or their marketing campaigns.

 

[DarKush]

To the OP's question, I do think there is some fear on the part of WB executives to put forward a Wonder Woman movie. I think a lot of this fear, where gender is concerned, is unfounded. I think audiences have grown a lot more accepting of female action leads, in addition to female being involved in the action of male-led action films. A tough, capable female is almost in every male-led action film now.

Of all the female superheroes Wonder Woman is the most ready for the big screen. I was checking out her Encyclopedia and her rogues' gallery isn't bad at all: Cheetah, Giganta, Circe, Ares, Veronica Cale, Dr. Poison, Dr. Psycho, Genocide, Silver Swan, etc. And recently Hera. I could definitely see Ares, Hera, Veronica Cale, Giganta, Circe, and Cheetah being great adversaries.

I also don't think her back story and her mythological ties are any more confusing or convoluted than a lot of other superheroes. A good writer can pull the strands together into something cohesive. If anything, in this age were fantasy films and books are cool, it's a great time to try Wonder Woman. Thor is a good model for how to do it. Also the animated film DC put out a couple years ago would be another good place to look for inspiration.

 

[Harvey]

Did anyone see Haywire? I know it didn't get that good of reviews, but I thought it looked pretty good, and it had a big name director (Steven Soderbergh), and some big names in the supporting cast (Micheal Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Micheal Douglas).

The reviews that I read were generally favorable, but I didn't really care for the movie. The story was pretty unremarkable, and Gina Carano -- as attractive and physically capable as she is -- couldn't act her way out of a paper bag.

With a budget of $23 million (not counting advertising) and worldwide grosses of $33 million, it wasn't a box office success, either.

 

[Gaith]

Also the animated film DC put out a couple years ago would be another good place to look for inspiration.

I fear that plot sounds boring as all hell to me... and in its story, where did all these Greek gods go between the Classical and modern times?

Two words that can guarantee a successful Wonder Woman movie: "Nazi Zombies".

No feelings, no morals, no romance... Just Diana ploughing into an endless horde of the undead with her magic sword decapitating and bifurcating the Axis menace.

After the first 10 minutes there's no more bullshit about her sexist costume because you can't see it through the caked gore.

Halfway agree: I'd like to see a WW movie start off in an alternate/even worse WW2, where the Nazis have conquered all of Western Europe (and maybe are still allied with the Soviets?). Along the lines of Captain America, but with a grittier, more Raiders or even Temple of Doom (the non-"funny" bits, mind) feel. Captain America is good and all, but it's so darn shiny.

 

[Guy Gardener]

have you read New Frontier ( not sure if this bit is in the movie?) but Diana liberates a Combodian rapecamp. Women in bamboo cages taken out for sex and then put away like sports equipment when there's better things to do. So Diana beats up all the cambodian "soldiers" and they're all tied up, she releases the women too, then hands one of thema mahcine gun and says their fate is up to you. A lot of gunfire fire later everyone is feeling real good about themselves. So Diana and these heavily armed women spend the next few months running around south east asia killing every man they see, until they bump into Superman.

"Diana, this is wrong. you can't let them do this, it's murder."

"Shut up Clark, you'll never understand you're not a woman, hell, you're not even human."

(The hilarious bit is that Wonder Woman is almost 6 inches taller than Superman.)

Lucy lawless played Wonder Woman in that aniimated movie.

(but read the comics, a much much larger story.)

I really should think about watching it again.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0902272/

(Wow, Brooke Shields as Carol Ferris? Star Sapphire? That'd still look damn good today in llive action.)