‘Wonder Woman’ creates global box office history with over $200 million haul

Doubt no more: Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman will have a sequel.

The DC Comics and Warner Bros production, headlined by Gal Gadot, has made box office history, raking in over $100 million in the opening weekend in the United States of America and over $122.5 million in overseas territories. A Hollywood Reporter story didn’t mince words: “In a defining moment for Hollywood’s gender problem, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman grossed a winning $100.5 million from 4,165 theaters in its domestic box-office debut over the weekend, the biggest opening ever for a female director.”

Wonder Woman performed better than other superhero titles such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man. According to a report in 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.””

The movie’s release was preceded by favourable critical reviews and a surge of affection for Jenkins’s narrative treatment from women’s-only previews in the US. It has taken 75 years for the comic book character to get a solo film. Jenkins’s feat will boost the prospects of female filmmakers who wish to work in genre productions in Hollywood.

Bryce Dallas Howard, who played a pivotal role with sexist overtones in the global hit Jurassic World (2015), spoke for many women in Hollywood through her tweet.

Jenkins has previously made only one movie (Monster, 2003). She joins a short list of 22 women in Hollywood whose films have earned over $100 million. The list includes Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey), Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated, Something’s Gotta Give) and Nora Ephron (You’ve Got Mail, Julie and Julia).

Wonder Woman was originally supposed to have been directed by Michelle MacLaren, who backed out after creative differences with Warner Bros. Jenkins’s vision for the character and Allan Heinberg’s screenplay were aimed at making the dark subject matter – World War I, chemical warfare – palatable to the younger viewers targetted by the movie.

A Forbes report put the achievements of Jenkins and Gadot in perspective: “Up to this point, DC Comics has never had an outright smash hit without Batman or Superman showing up to play…Even Suicide Squad was sold with sequences involving Batman (and Batman baddies like The Joker and Harley Quinn) along with a genuine movie star like Will Smith. But now they have just such a thing.”