Wonder Woman Lives Up to the Hype

With the release of Wonder Woman, the female heroine created by William Moulton Marston, finally got her long-overdue origin story on the big screen.

Directed by Jenkins, Gal Gadot leads a cast that includes Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Lucy Davis, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Eugen Brave Rock, and Saïd Taghmaoui.  Jenkins directs from a screenplay written by Allan Heinberg.  The story was written by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs.

Diana is the only child of Themyscira and until Captain Steve Trevor’s plane crashes near the island, she had never seen a man before.  She decides to follow him to war so that she can find Ares and kill him.  Unlike the comic books, the setting is World War 1, rather than World War 2.  The filmmakers chose this setting as the tail end of the war marked the beginning of the suffragette movement.  Whether that was the right decision to make, I don’t know.  The film is still amazing and lives up to the hype.

I am curious as to whether future Wonder Woman movies will take place in the past or during the current DC Universe of movies so that her Justice League teammates could possibly cameo.  For example, actor Chris Pine is signed to a multiple-picture deal but if the films are set in the current area, he would be relegated to only appearing in flashbacks.  If you saw the movie over the weekend, and you probably did, you can understand how this could potentially be a problem.  The other thing is this: Unlike Diana, Steve Trevor can’t age as slowly.

“The time is absolutely right to bring Wonder Woman to movie audiences,” Jenkins says. “Fans have been waiting a long time for this, but I believe people outside the fandom are ready for a Wonder Woman movie, too.  Superheroes have played a role in many people’s lives; it’s that fantasy of ‘What would it be like if I was that powerful and that great, and I could go on that exciting journey and do heroic things?’  I’m no different.  I was seven years old when I first read Superman, and it rocked my world because I felt like Superman.  The character captured exactly what I believed in then and still do: that there is a part of every human being that wishes they could change the world for the better.”

This film has been in the making since 1996, almost 20 years after Lynda Carter debuted as the Amazonian hero.  Throw in Patty Jenkins as director and it’s a win-win for both Warner Bros. and DC.  The studio needed this movie to be a hit after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad didn’t live up to expectations in 2016.  Whether Justice League will be a success for the studio later this year remains to be determined.

Warner Brothers opened Wonder Woman on Friday, June 2, 2017.   The film took in a massive $103 million for its opening weekend following by another $11.8 million on Monday.  It was a record opening weekend for a female director.