“Wonder Woman” and her Lasso of Truth are lighting up the box office. The New York Times writes that the superhero movie and its director, Patty Jenkins, “just broke Hollywood’s superhero glass ceiling.” The Gal Gadot-led film took in about $100.5 million at North American theaters during its opening weekend, the source reports. It earned over $122 million abroad. So the famed Amazon warrior has brought in over $223 million — so far.
“Wonder Woman” is a huge hit. So much so that according to Forbes, the film’s impressive opening “could fuel shares of Time Warner Inc to a 20 percent stock return over the coming year.” Forbes explains, “Time Warner owns Warner Bros., the film and television studio that controls DC Entertainment, the rights holder for ‘Wonder Woman’ comics.”
And how will Diana Prince’s box office ascent affect the future of films by and about women? The success of ‘Wonder Woman’ will probably encourage studios to do more to equalize the playing field,” the Times writes. “For years, female superheroes were held back by the argument — a ridiculous one in the eyes of most critics — that male ticket buyers would stay home if a woman led the action; the failures of ‘Catwoman’ in 2004 and ‘Elektra’ in 2005 were used as proof.”
Guess who accounted for the majority of “Wonder Woman’s” ticket-buyers? Women. They didn’t stay home — they flocked to the theater to see a beloved, iconic female character finally make it to the big screen. An exit poll indicated that turnout for “Wonder Woman” was 52 percent female — 53 percent of whom were under 35 years old — and 48 percent male, marking the first Marvel or DC film with a female majority. These numbers will offer solid data to dispel multiple myths in Hollywood—namely that women don’t go to the movies and men won’t go see movies centered on female characters.
“The box office result was on par with ‘Iron Man,’ the 2008 film that kick-started Marvel’s lineup, and beat the arrivals of ‘Captain America,’ ‘Thor,’ and ‘Doctor Strange,’” the Times writes. And how did it do comparatively abroad? According to Variety, “the international numbers are higher than many other super hero films including the first two ‘Thor’ and ‘Iron Man’ movies, both ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ volumes, and ‘Man of Steel.’”
“Wonder Woman” — and Jenkins — faced unfairly high expectations from the time the project was announced. If the woman-helmed movie about a female superhero failed to perform at the box office, the project’s outcome would have been used to justify not hiring women directors to direct big-budget films, and female-led blockbusters would have been seen as even riskier than they already are (despite loads of evidence that women-centric films are profitable). Instead, it seems that “Wonder Woman” may serve as a much-needed wake-up call to those who continue to underestimate women as a market.
