It’s a double victory for the movie Wonder Woman, as its director is also a woman, Patty Jenkins. It was a huge gamble on the part of Warner Bros. to get Jenkins as the director for the first woman-centric movie based on a comic book. Her only previous big-screen credit was an indie film with an $8 million budget. Compare that to Wonder Woman’s budget of $150 million. But her film, Monster (2003), was well received by critics and gave a best actress Oscar to Charlize Theron.
Indeed it was a big gamble, but the results showed that the success of a film does not fully rely on a director’s prior experiences. Of course past works help, but there is always a first time for everyone.
Different View of Wonder Woman
Director Jenkins pitched her idea to the studio back in 2010. She wanted the film to be an origin story. She envisioned the story to take place during WWI, when Princess Diana of Themyscira was only seven years old. Jenkins was not the first female director Warner Bros. was considering. They were already talking with Michelle MacLaren, the director of Games of Thrones. However, MacLaren’s vision for Wonder Woman differed from what the studio wanted and they parted ways.
As luck would have it, producer Charles Roven told his daughter, Rebecca, who is the film’s executive producer, to keep in touch with Jenkins, just in case. In 2015, Jenkins got the nod from Warner Bros. to direct the film, approving her idea. Later Jenkins said that it was a huge responsibility. It’s a very expensive movie. However, she said that she only wanted to helm the greatest film version of Wonder Woman, because like many moviegoers, she loves the character.
Universal Appeal
Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain America and later Iron Man and Thor – all were male comic book superheroes. They beat super villains to a pulp and in their universe; each one has a massive following. But this time, it’s girl power that reigned. First, the director is a woman. The star is a woman, an Amazonian princess who can deflect bullets with her bracelets.
Jenkins portrayed Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman as everyone’s hero and protector. She is a relatable character who speaks about 100 languages! The fierce bow-and-arrow wielding women of Themyscira Island speak with a Greco-Esperanto accent.
Diana, the princess of the Amazon, grew up hearing stories of women placed on the planet to defeat Ares, the god of war. She trained for the future throughout her childhood, receiving tutelage from her aunt, Antiope. She wanted to be like those women and got her opportunity when she met a British spy who was trying to elude the German forces during World War I. He crash-landed on the island of Themyscira, met Diana and told her of the war. She wanted to fight Ares so she went with him. But she saw that she was not to fight the god of war. Instead it was a modern war where innocents are killed and the true evil lies in most people’s hearts.
The movie parallels modern day realities where authorities in their cozy offices direct the war and Gadot’s Diana shone on the instances when she became furious at men who only stood and did nothing.
Wonder Woman is a DC comic book hero film you’d want to see. It got a 93 percent fresh meter rating from Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 93 percent as well. It’s a film that showcases the moral issues during WWI, Diana Prince’s self-discovery as well as discovering that she has to rescue people not from the war but from themselves.
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