WB Is Looking for a Female Director for WONDER WOMAN, and That Is Great News for All of Us
Even though women are swiftly swelling the ranks of directors in a wide range of genres, the superhero movie has remained out of reach. Lexi Alexander directed Punisher: War Zone, and Patty Jenkins was supposed to direct Thor: The Dark World for Marvel, but it didn’t pan out. That’s it. That’s all the women who have had a shot at a superhero film, which is pathetic. But according to a brief mention in THR, that’s about to change. In an article about the slew of superhero movies coming out in the next few years lies this sentence:
Warners also is opting for strong directors, tapping David Ayer (Fury) for Suicide Squad and seeking a female helmer for Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman.
That is great news, and it puts DC ahead of Marvel in an important way. While Kevin Feige is hemming and hawing all over the place about how he hopes maybe they’ll make a female driven superhero movie someday and is pissing off women by leaving Gamora out of Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise, DC has a superheroine movie on their release docket, and they’re planning to hire a female director bring it to the screen. It’s a really smart move for the studio, both politically in terms of attracting a female audience (that is already out there and clamoring for superhero movies that speak to them), but also creatively. The audience is better served when studios hire new, innovative people with fresh, original takes on familiar stories.
I’m sure there are some who will claim (and be pissed) that Warner Bros. is kowtowing to political correctness, but they can get stuffed. It’s true that not many women have experience directing big action movies, but neither had the Russo Brothers when Marvel hired them, and we’re all really glad they did. A lot of studios have been taking chances by hiring lesser known indie directors to take on their big action tentpoles (Gareth Edwards, Colin Trevorrow). Screenwriter Roberto Orci is about to direct Star Trek 3, and he hasn’t directed anything ever. So you can’t argue that these big budget movies require experience.
Meanwhile, Bigelow finally broke though the glass ceiling to win an Oscar, and Angelina Jolie is expected to be nominated for Best Director this year. There was a female director, Jennifer Lee, on Frozen, the highest grossing animated movie of all time, and there are several other women who have directed movies that have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars, including Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Phyllida Lloyd, and Catherine Hardwicke. And women like Michelle MacLaren are killing it doing innovative, cinematic work on shows like Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones.
After Marvel ditched Jenkins, they hired Alan Taylor, whose only movies were critical failures and box office flops. Jenkins had directed the Academy Award winning Monster. That wasn’t exactly an upgrade, and the Thor sequel wasn’t exactly a classic. I can't say for sure that Jenkins would have made a better movie, but it probably wouldn't have been worse. Expanding the field of contenders to include more women is good for audiences, male and female alike.