This past weekend, the redhead and I went to see Wonder Woman. It was fantastic, easily the best DC superhero movie produced since The Dark Knight, and possibly even better than that. I'm going to write about it soon, but what I want to talk about today is the fact that in its opening weekend the movie it made $100 million in the domestic market and another $122 million internationally. This should put to rest the notion that female-led superhero movies won't make money. It won't. I can already hear the rationalizations that will be made to dismiss the possibility of more women-led super-hero films.
I'm not having any of those excuses. And we shouldn't accept that this is the one movie "for the girls" to keep the women happy and then let the studios go back to making all dude movies. If Wonder Woman can be a big hit for DC, why not Black Canary? Where is the movie about Power Girl? How about Zatanna? Can't we have a movie about her? Maybe DC should think about making a movie about Batgirl instead of yet another movie about Batman's origin, who at this point is possibly the most boring and overused character in super-heroic cinematic history. There are just so many possibilities that are more interesting and have more potential than the usual cast of dude characters. Given that Wonder Woman was by far the best movie you've made in your DC Extended Universe series of movies, maybe it would be a good idea to try telling some movies featuring female characters instead of the broody dudes you've put forward thus far.
And Marvel doesn't get a pass on this either. Sure, their movies have been a lot better than DC's movies so far, but they have been pretty sausage-heavy affairs. There have been fifteen movies released thus far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and not one of them headlines a woman. Sure, Black Widow has shown up in a handful, Scarlet Witch has been in two, and Gamora has been in both Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but I'd like to see a movie where Black Widow is the headlining star. Wait, scratch that, let's have two Black Widow movies. They'd probably be more interesting than Thor: The Dark World. We've got the Captain Marvel movie to look forward to, but that will be the twenty-first movie in the series. The fact that there won't be a female-led Marvel movie until then is just ridiculous. Even the Wasp has to share her movie debut with Ant-Man. How about we have a Wasp solo movie instead? Can we have a Ms. Marvel movie too? We've had five Marvel series on Netflix, four of which were good. Which one was the best? Jessica Jones. Can we get another series about her and just cancel Iron Fist1 forever? There are so many good female Marvel super-heroes, let's balance the scales and have fifteen movies in a row starring women.
And while we are at it, let's talk about Fox and the X-Men. Somehow you guys have managed to have two solo movies for Wolverine and another for Deadpool (with another on its way), and yet there hasn't been a solo Storm movie? How about a Polaris movie? Or one starring Rogue? Or Emma Frost? Hell, I'd even accept a movie headlined by Dazzler. How about we see some mutant women get the spotlight for once? I mean, it's not like the franchise has much to lose, given that only three or four of the movies in the series have actually been good.
I guess this is a long-winded way of saying to movie producers: Don't stop with Wonder Woman. There are so many great female super-heroes out there whose stories are waiting to be told. How about you all start telling them?
1 Apparently, Netflix has decided to cancel Sense8 and renew Iron Fist for another season, which is just straight-up bullshit of the first order. The only way Iron Fist should ever appear onscreen again is paired up with Luke Cage in a team-up series, and even then, I absolutely insist that Iron Fist be required to wear the ridiculous green jumpsuit with the yellow collar and sash belt at all times. Yes, even in boardroom scenes. The 1985 movie The Last Dragon was a better Iron Fist story than the Iron Fist Netflix series, and that movie wasn't even about Iron Fist and featured a villain named "Sho'nuff".
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