Is WB simply afraid of Wonder Woman?

[Mister Fandango]

...has anyone actually said that?

In response to Arrow being an inexpensive show about a superhero...

NBC tried that. Didn't work out so good.

That's a direct implication that because an inexpensive version didn't work, it CAN'T work, because it was a crap show about Wonder Woman, not that it was just a crap show, period.

So yes, people have said that. No matter how much they try to backpeddle now.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was watching the pilot for a second time and i blinked. Scrubbed my eyes and said "fuck me, but that's Cary Elwes."

I'm imagining that during preprodution that the director said, and I'm suddenly remembering that the director isn't an idiot, but he might have been drunk, but the director said "Cary, I know that you got old and fat, and that's a good start, but you're still too sexy for American TV, is there anything you can do about your English accent?"

(I love it when Carey shows up on Psych.)

 

[sidious618]

I think a large problem with Wonder Woman, outside of the women action film situation, is that she doesn't have consistent characterization like Batman or Superman. As a character, there have been few truly interesting takes on her and how she behaves tend to vary a bit depending on the writer in a way that Batman and Superman don't.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The feeling in Hollywood is that female superheroes imply do not have the built in audience that the male characters have.

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.

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.

 

[Gaith]

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.

Alien is a horror movie (in which Final Girls are fairly common), a haunted ship in space, not an action movie, and Ripley is certainly no superhuman.

Even in Aliens, which is an action movie, she's still more of a Final Girl than a badass, eventually taking the action lead only because the real tough ones, the Marines, are wounded or killed.

Same goes for Sarah Connor, really: Final Girl in T1, not nearly as tough or strong as Uncle Bob in T2.

So, unless we're talking about a non-superpowered WW, I don't find Ripley or Sarah Connor to be useful points of reference. Alice and Selene, yes. But I've already addressed them.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

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.

Alien is a horror movie (in which Final Girls are fairly common), a haunted ship in space, not an action movie, and Ripley is certainly no superhuman.

Even in Aliens, which is an action movie, she's still more of a Final Girl than a badass, eventually taking the action lead only because the real tough ones, the Marines, are wounded or killed.

I disagree with the Tropes definition. In Aliens, Ripley was skeptical of the marines from the start, questioning their every decision, then taking command as soon as the first attack occured in the sub-level (ignoring the CO). from that point, she asserted herself throughout the rest of the film, barking orders at a trained soldier (Hudson) and Company sleaze alike (Burke). She was no shrinking violet only finding her strength at the last minute when all else failed (that's more like Barbara in 1968's Night of the Living Dead).

Moreover, no 1980s message of the new brand of female empowerment was as clear as the tease of Ripley using that exoskeleton/mover, only to have her turn it into armored battle gear in the finale--after the planetside scenes of her causing physcial destruction on par with that decade's most criticized violent films, Rambo: First Blood II and Scarface.

The new superwoman had arrived, so much that standing next to an actual superheroine in that era's big screen Supergirl, Ripley appeared to be the bigger super-badass, even without a cape.

 

[Kegg]

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--

And in no way were bigger names than Wonder Woman. The idea that WW's problem is that her brand recognition isn't at the level of male superheroes only really works when you're discussing Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, characters of that recognition. By the time studios have moved on to Ant-Man and Green Lantern it's no longer a feasible argument.

I find this partially false: the original Alien movie series

May have wanted to read more of the thread here. As I responded to someone who used the example of Cameron's action films (such as, obivously, Aliens):

Well he's right at least Cameron has made action films starring women... decades ago. But I'm not talking about whether or not successful action films with female leads exist (because there are) but that Hollywood believes they would not make the money they want on those pictures.

And this is precisely the paradigm we have here, and why there hasn't been any blockbuster superheroine-starring films for a long time. Hollywood doesn't want to bet on something they consider more likely to lose.

 

[theenglish]

It is her costume. It doesn't work in real life. Give her a costume more like Wonder Girls (any of them really) and it works better on screen. She needs to save the world in something more than a bathing suit.

 

[stj]

Feminism in general is politically incorrect. Only certain kinds of feminism are acceptable and Wonder Woman doesn't fit into any of them. Wonder Woman refusing to kill can work but Wonder Woman as a pacifist makes her superhero movie a non-starter.

And the magic/mythology thing is really hard to work with. I don't know why Thor managed to do such good box office but I do understand why a mediocre screenwriter couldn't really write him into The Avengers.

Uncomfortable cultural politics, clumsy backstory, and yes, a fear that the unwashed don't accept women action heroes, these fears are undoubtedly part of the slowness to pursue the comic book movie gold mine.

But honestly there's a good chance the generally poor economic environment plays a major role in caution.

The best solution of course is to have James Cameron do the WW movie.

 

[Gaith]

And the magic/mythology thing is really hard to work with. I don't know why Thor managed to do such good box office

From Superman to Neo to James Bond to the Uncle Bob T-800 to countless others, male supermen/demi-gods are pretty common box office winners.


TREK_GOD_1, you can quote the plot of Aliens all you like, but the fact remains that, physically speaking, Ripley was no superwoman in either of those first two films. In a fair fight, Hicks, Hudson, or Vasquez would easily have beaten her. It was only through her superior situational experience, Hicks' incapacitation, Hudson's comical ineptness and Vasquez's death that she became the last adult standing. Whereas if Wonder Woman had been part of the expedition, she'd have been the obvious leader from the get-go, and the movie would have been totally different.

... Because she is strong enough to easily beat the crap out of any non-metahuman. And sometimes she can fly. And deflect bullets and all. She'd probably be as scared of a facehugger as a human adult would be a rabid house cat - problematic, maybe, but nothing a solid kick couldn't take care of. It's actually easier to write/get audiences to care for an underdog than a superhuman, which is why we see a lot more thriller heroines than action ones.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The current Wonder Woman run, in which Greek Gods behave like a community of insane expats in the modern world, would work really well for a TV series, actually.

 

[JD]

I know the studios seem to convinced that a female superhero movie won't work, since most of the other ones that have been done in the past failed. Now I'll admit, I haven't seen Elektra, or Catwoman, but from everything I've heard their failure had nothing to do with the character, and everything to do with the fact that they were bad movies. I really think if they were to actually make a female led superhero movie that was actually as good as Avengers or Dark Knight, then it would make those kinds of money. The secret here would be to get a good writer and/or director who knows how to do strong female heroes, like Joss Whedon. I still wonder if his WW movie didn't get made because it wasn't good, or if it was just because they decided they didn't want to do a WW after all.
The WW animated movie that DC released as part of their DC Universe Animated Movies series proves that with a good story and a good cast, it is possible to get a good WW movie.

 

[Harvey]

The Alien series is a useful point of reference not because it has a female lead, but because Fox kept pushing the producers to have a male lead instead. They felt that even the most successful films in the franchise could have done better at the box office with a male lead (the Alien Legacy box set has several interviews that indicate this, especially about Aliens).

As for Catwoman and Elektra failing because they were bad movies, that may be so, but Hollywood has rarely tried to replicate quality, they've tried to replicate formula. Comic book movies with male leads have been successful, while ones with female leads have failed; thus, no more comic book movies with female leads (for as long as Hollywood, with its short memory, remembers those failures).

 

[JarodRussell]

The current Wonder Woman run, in which Greek Gods behave like a community of insane expats in the modern world, would work really well for a TV series, actually.

I'm tihad of ze zame old faces, ze zame old zings.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Well, what are we debating here, whether a superhero movie with a female lead can succeed or whether they are likely to get greenlit?

 

[Dream]

Everyone points to Ripley and Sarah Connor as strong female characters, and while I agree, they weren't the draw for their movies. People went to see those movies for the Aliens themselves or the killer cyborgs from the future.

For those saying a heavy mythology based superhero movie can't be done... Marvel already beat Warners to the punch with Thor. I think eveyone would agree that Wonder Woman is much more popular than Thor.

I thought Thor and Captain America did as well as expected for superhero movies not named Batman. A decent Wonder Woman movie would make as much money. I doubt it would reach Avengers and the Iron Man levels though, those movies came out at the right place at the right time. Everything came together perfectly for them.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I think eveyone would agree that Wonder Woman is much more popular than Thor.

Wonder Woman may be more widely recognizable than Thor, but I would argue about her "popularity". Her current well-deserved success in the Nu52 is sadly the exception rather than the rule. Historically the WW comic has always struggled to find readers, as her frequent re-inventions can attest. Hardly the sign of a historically "popular" character.

Thor, on the other hand, has largely been a consistently steady, if not always spectacular, selling book.

 

[AvBaur]

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.

Actually, the producers have said as much. I distinctly remember reading quotes by a producer (Joel Silver, I think) saying that the reason they weren't making the Joss Whedon version of WW was that action movies starring women don't work.
This is a typical Hollywood double standard. Nobody would suggest that people don't want to see sci-fi action movies starring handsome, white, straight men anymore just because Green Lantern and John Carter flopped, after all.

When you have script drafts by the writer/director of the third-highest grossing movie of all time and the co-writer of the highest-grossing one and still don't make the movie, there's gotta be other reasons than "we haven't found the right script yet".

 

[DWF]

All Wonder Woman needs is some inspired director/writer to sell a great idea to Warner Brothers and get the movie made, so far that's not happened yet.

 

[Guy Gardener]

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.