It’s 2017, making it three years shy of the 100-year anniversary of the year women gained the right to vote. But, women’s suffrage was not the only cultural milestone of the year 1920; it was also the year that the first superhero movie premiered, The Mark of Zorro, by Fred Niblo and Theodore Reed.
With the 19th amendment opening up the floodgates for the rise of powerful women and it’s uncanny alignment with the creation of the superhero movie genre, it would seem only natural for there to be a strong female superhero to take the lead role on the silver screen, cape and all.
History of the Super-Heroine Movie Genre
On the contrary, it took a whopping 64 years for Hollywood to produce a super-heroine movie—Helen Slater’s portrayal of 'Supergirl' directed by Jeannot Szwarf. Sadly, it tanked at the box office earning a measly $14 million, and doing an effective job of scaring away producers from funding any future female-led superhero movies.
That is until 2004 and 2005, with 'Catwoman' and 'Elektra' respectively, both of which did terribly, raking in only $40 million and $24 million each opening weekend. To give some perspective here, Man Of Steel (2013) managed $116.6 million in its opening weekend.
Wonder Woman Smashes Past Failures
These statistics made fans and critics fear the worst from DC’s Wonder Woman, likely expecting another flop for the historically weak superheroine genre.
Thankfully, director Patty Jenkins wasn’t going to let the male-dominated genre continue to be a sausage fest. In its opening weekend, #WonderWoman not only smashed past super-heroine movies but also dominated many of its male counterparts, earning $103.1 million in its opening weekend domestically.
This domestic opening beats other recent superhero blockbuster hits, such as 'Iron Man' ($98.6 million), Doctor Strange ($85 million), and 'Thor' ($65.7 million).
And despite falling below the opening weekends of superhero movies such as 'Man of Steel', critical response favors Wonder Woman with a 93 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, beating the Superman feature's 55 percent. In addition to its critical acclaim and massive triumph at the box office, Wonder Woman earned its director, Patty Jenkins, the title of the highest grossing domestic opening weekend for a female director, dethroning Sam Taylor-Johnson, director of '50 Shades of Grey' with a $85.1 million domestic opening in 2015.
Jenkins' 'Wonder Woman' is only the second time in cinema history where a female director was given a budget of $100 million or more — Kathryn Bigelow's 'K:19: The Widowmaker' (2002) being the first. Luckily for the future of women in the film industry, the success of Wonder Woman has officially set a positive precedent for future female directors and powerful leading ladies.
With cumulative, combined domestic and international takes, Wonder Woman is soon likely to pass the $600 million mark in the next few days. In one huge step for women in film, Jenkins and her star, Gal Gadot, have officially made HERstory for the super-heroine movie genre.
