Will 'Wonder Woman' Open Doors for Female Directors?
by EG
As the June 2 debut of Wonder Woman approached, the talk at Women in Film, a prominent Hollywood nonprofit that advocates for equal opportunities behind the camera, was that director Patty Jenkins' picture could be a make-or-break moment. "We needed this movie to do well," says Kirsten Schaffer, the group's executive director in Los Angeles. "We wanted to be able to say to the filmmaking community: A superhero movie made by a woman can break box-office records." So WIF urged its 10,000-plus members worldwide, as well as other women's groups, to bombard theaters on opening weekend, take pictures and post them on social media with the hashtag #WonderWKND.
In retrospect, the outreach might not have been necessary. Attracting a fan base of 53 percent women and 47 percent men, Wonder Woman opened to $228 million globally and the biggest domestic launch ($103 million) for a female director. Reflecting its "A" CinemaScore, the Gal Gadot film dropped just 43 percent in its second weekend, the lowest decline by a superhero movie since Batman Begins in 2005. As of June 13, its worldwide gross stood at $438.5 million.
Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.
Wonder Woman stars Israeli actress/model Gal Gadot and Star Trek Beyond star Chris Pine.