[ SECRET POST #2583 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2583 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: DA

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I don't know that it's all that different. Superhero movies stand and fall on their ability to bring in general audiences. The fact that an action movie with a woman as its primary protagonist (and produced by a woman), a sequel no less, had better box office than either Iron Man 3 or Thor: The Dark World should go a long way for dispelling the notion that a female lead is box office poison in the 21st century.

tl;dr

[(Anonymous)]

Frozen and Catching Fire were bound to make money from the start. Frozen was a Disney movie that appealed to both genders (even though it's ultimately a princess movie about sisters, the (imo, horrible) commercials played up the comic relief characters for the boys), which got whole families to come in droves. Catching Fire was the sequel to an incredibly successful movie, and already had the YA fanbase backing it up (and I'm sure every movie producer in Hollywood knows how powerful that demographic is, given the success of the Twilight films).

With WW, on the other hand, is a lot more...I hate to use the word "tricky," but when it comes to film she is, especially since she’s supposed to be part of a shared universe. Unlike Batman or Superman, Wonder Woman is the least well-known of the three. She's an icon (which does not automatically guarantee financial success at the box office, keep in mind), but the average person can't name her rogues, her love interest, her backstory, her motivations, etc. A lot of this is the fault of the source material itself, since her supporting cast and characterization gets changed around so much. You might say that this is unimportant, since no one knew about Iron Man/Thor/etc., but the problem with WW is that her story has been told and changed so many times that even the fans can’t agree on the some of the most basic elements of her character. There was a shitstorm following Gail Gadot’s casting because she’s not muscular enough, forgetting that fact that WW with muscles is a relatively recent invention, and that she was slender and lithe for the entirety of the pre-crisis (and part of the post-crisis?) era (plus I wouldn’t exactly call Lynda Carter muscular, either). Also, her origin. Is she a young woman who falls in love with a WW2 pilot and follows him back to the mainland, fighting to protect the world from the tyranny of Nazis? Is she an “Ambassador of Peace” who fights Greek Gods in the modern world? Is she a diplomat? Does she have a secret identity? Does she have a love interest? Who are her friends? Where is her base of operations? Who is her archenemy? Hell, who are her villains? Yes, Batman and Superman’s origins have been tweaked to some degree, but they have largely been consistent, and their core has remained the same.

And there are the more technical issues with her motivations/origin as well that might be a tough sell on the big screen. I loved the WW2 origin (it's the only one that makes sense, imo, but I doubt they'd do that since it would be viewed today as a Captain America ripoff), but the "Ambassador of Peace" one essentially involves her coming to a foreign country and showing everyone (or at least believing) they're Doing It Wrong. The idea of an island being a utopian paradise because there are no men sounds quite silly and hokey to modern audiences, and would be difficult to translate into their grim and gritty movieverse. Also, there’s the inherent contradiction of an ambassador of peace being the first one to go out and beat the shit out a bad guy. And furthermore, her origin is based around magic. For some reason, the current batch of superhero movies try to distance themselves from magic by explaining it as really sci-fi in origin, but if you take away magic from WW’s origin it would be an absolute disaster.

All this aside, there’s still the issue of marketing. While Frozen and Catching Fire had a built-in audience to begin with, WW’s hypothetical fanbase would be a lot shakier. While she may be nearly as iconic as Batman and Superman, she’s nowhere near as popular with today’s audiences. Her comic sells steadily, but it’s never been a big seller since the Golden Age. The fanbase alone would not be able to support the movie. Green Lantern sells a lot more copies than her, and look at how badly that movie bombed. She hasn’t had a show of her own since 40 years ago, and the current warrior woman, Xena-esque characterization is completely at odds with Carter’s portrayal of the character. How would you even market this kind of movie? Is it a female Clash of the Titans? Is it a spy thriller? A fantasy story? With Batman and Superman it’s easy, but Wonder Woman lacks centralization. WW should ultimately be an inspiration for young girls, but I can see them trying to make this movie dark and serious and violent to appeal to guys as well, and do you really think parents would take their seven year old girl to see her cut off the heads of hydras or whatever (I don’t follow DC too closes anymore but my understanding is that her newest incarnation uses a sword and tries to play up the “warrior” instead of “magic princess” angle. And she doesn’t seem to avoid killing anymore, which might make parents uncomfortable). And would the average, non-comic reading male (child, teenager, adult, whatever) want to watch a movie about a female superhero that fights with a lasso (can she even fly anymore?? I think she was depowered over the last couple years), talks about gender inequality, is from an all-woman island that is apparently a lot better than our world because women are inherently more peaceful, fights Greek gods, and spends her spare time working as a diplomat? I really don’t have an answer to this. Boys obviously can watch and enjoy movies with female protagonists (as demonstrated by the films you mentioned), but Wonder Woman has many elements that can come across as alienating or off-putting.

I don't think a WW movie would necessarily be box office poison, but it's a considerably heavier risk than either of the movies you mentioned.

Re: tl;dr

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with all of this. Well said!

This is also why I prefer animated movies for DC characters most of the time.

Re: tl;dr

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, serious great comment with a lot of thought!

Re: tl;dr

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Neither movie had much of an audience to begin with. Compare Frozen to other animated family releases over the last decade, many of which bombed. Likewise YA readership is a small fraction of a blockbuster's audience. That's doubly true of comic book collectors who are trivial and irrelevant when it comes to movie marketing, reflected in the fact that few superhero movies have done more than shake hands with their source material while holding their nose.

But note, my argument wasn't that Wonder Woman will succeed or fail. It could certainly suck. My argument was that it's unlikely to succeed or fail because Wonder Woman is a Woman. Hunger Games had a 400+ million box office. Before Hunger Games there was Twilight, as much as we like to cringe at it, which was another blockbuster success with a woman as protagonist. (Some analyst pointed out that Catching Fire is the first female-led film to take top yearly slot since the Exorcist by comparison.) The argument that a big-budget blockbuster and a female lead are incompatible with each other isn't true anymore.

Re: tl;dr

[(Anonymous)]

It's going to be the same as it always is with video games: If a game with a female lead does poorly, it's because of the female lead, if it does well, it's despite the female lead. It's not even a question if there is truth to it, but that's what at least a good number of people will say about a female lead superhero movie as well.

Re: tl;dr

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah, in that case I definitely agree (It was late last night and I've been reading a bunch of posts and articles asking why WW doesn't have a movie, so there might have been some projection in my comment, haha). There have been plenty of female-led blockbusters (Gravity, Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave, etc.), and just because WW is female does not automatically mean the movie is doomed for failure. I think there are a lot of things about the WW character that could prevent her from having a successful movie (critically or financially) and drawing in numbers, or even getting off the ground in the first place, which I talked about in my last comment. Her story is much less "universal" than Batman, Superman, etc. because she is so firmly entrenched in gender politics, and I question she will be able to draw in that general audience because of it.

I disagree that Frozen and Catching Fire did not have much of an audience to begin with. Frozen premiered during a time when there was little, if any, competition for children's movies, and it was a princess one to boot. Catching Fire did not solely rely on the YA demographic (though Hunger Games is one of those titles like Harry Potter in the sense that it can appeal to many outside the designated demographic), but rather the audience from the first film, which was critically and financially successful.