7 Reasons There’s No Wonder Woman Movie [Movies]

Even though Wonder Woman is 70 years old, there has never been a movie because she’s a strong female character with a confusing origin and complex personality.

Above Image: Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman first appeared in 1941 (All Star Comics #8). Since then, there has never been a live action theatrical movie. Considering she’s one of the “Big Three” DC characters, along with Superman and Batman, this is strange.

Superman has five movies. Batman has seven films. Wonder Woman has none.

Many people have tried. But every attempt to bring the movie to the big screen has failed. Read on to find out the reasons why and what it says about everyone’s favorite Amazon and female superhero movies.

Update: The Wonder Woman movie is scheduled to open June 2, 2017, but these are a good list of reasons to be wary of the film.

1. Lame Villains

Wonder Woman’s worst enemy: Lee Press-On Girl

Quick! Name Batman’s main villain! Now, name Superman’s nemesis! Finally, for 100 points, name Wonder Woman’s arch-villain! Can you? Wonder Woman has no great villain.

See if these names sound like terrifying foes: Angle Man, Baroness von Gunther, Circe, Doctor Cyber. None of them would have made it past to the C-list in Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery.

Joss Whedon, who came close to writing and directing a movie based on the Amazon Princess, told Entertainment Weekly, “Batman has it made, he’s got the greatest rogues gallery ever. Wonder Woman has no one, which means it’s hard to tell a compelling story.”

When you hear Batman is fighting the Joker or Superman is fighting Lex Luthor, you know it’ll be good.  Do you care if Wonder Woman is fighting Cheetah? Does she have any good villains?

2. Loving Hero in an Age of Anti-Heroes

People love anti-heroes these days. People love to see someone break rules in violent ways, but Wonder Woman is the opposite of that. That was intentional. She was created that way.

In the 1940s a psychologist named William Moulton Marston, already famous for inventing the lie detector (or polygraph), came up with an idea for a new kind of superhero. This hero would fight evil, not with fists or firepower, but with love. Elizabeth Holloway Marston agreed, but said, “Fine. But make her a woman.”

In a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston wrote: “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.”

Wonder Woman will never be a dark hero like Batman. This lack of darkness is her greatest strength and weakness.

Can Wonder Woman succeed in an age of dark heroes?

Confusing Origins

“I promise to fight for the right for empowered women to wear knee-high boots!”

One problem with doing a Wonder Woman movie is there’s no consistent origin. Whedon said she had a “great origin” and most people would agree. But if you asked people what her origin is, you may get very different answers. It’s not like that with some heroes.

Batman has the murder of his parents, which leads him on a never ending quest to fight criminals. Superman has the destruction of his home planet and his adoption by Earthlings. Spider-Man gets bitten by a spider which gives him spider-like powers but becomes a hero after the death of his Uncle. Wonder Woman’s origin has been completely rewritten several times.

Let’s start with the original story from the 1940s. Wonder Woman is an Amazon champion. Steve Trevor is a United States intelligence officer whose plane crashes on the Amazonian’s isolated island and she wins the right to return him to “Man’s World.” There she takes the secret identity of an Army nurse, named Diana Prince, and fights crime and the evil of the Nazis.

Now we travel to the 1960s. Wonder Woman’s origin is rewritten to give her more of a mythological basis. On the day of her birth she gets the blessing of several deities. Making Diana “beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, as strong as Hercules, and as swift as Hermes.” She loses her powers, becomes a boutique owner and has a Chinese mentor named I Ching. I Ching’s teaches Diana martial arts and weapons skills and she travels on a variety of adventures from an international spy to mythology. She eventually got her powers back.

In the 1980s, after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, her origin was revamped again. Hippolyta wished for a child and made one out of clay of the shores of Themyscira (the new name for Paradise Island). The clay figure was brought to life by the Greek deities and blessed with superpowers. Wonder Woman was made an ambassador from the island with the mission of bringing peace to our world.

After so many stories of her beginning, can her origin be told? Which is the right one?

A Complex Personality

Some characters are easy to explain in one sentence. Superman fights for truth, justice, and the American way. Batman is the dark fighter of the streets of Gotham. Spider-man is a nerd who becomes a hero. Wonder Woman is more complex than that.

“It’s hard to draw a bead on her; she doesn’t define easily in one sentence. ” Wonder Woman comic writer Greg Rucka said, “Superman does, Batman does, Spider-Man does those [are the] sort of iconic characters where, in the course of a half of a page, you can get them, explain what they’re about; but Diana is far more complicated so that different writers focus on different aspects.  That doesn’t mean any one writer is right or wrong just that they gravitate to different things about her character.  Every writer looks for an ‘in’ with the character some people have found the ‘in’ with this sort of naïve virgin, some have found it in the über-warrior, and some people have found this in the sex symbol.  Those didn’t work for me, [but it] doesn’t mean that those who came before are wrong that was their take, this is mine.”

David E. Kelly, who produced the live action Wonder Woman pilot, told MovieWeb, “When I started thinking about all the complications and potential layers to this superhero, I just got more and more intrigued. It was also something I was a little bit afraid of.”

Even Joss Whedon said “Besides [Wonder Woman’s] great origin story, there’s nothing from the comics that felt right 100 percent, no iconic canon story that must be told. Batman has it made he’s got the greatest rogues gallery ever, he’s got Gotham City. The Bat writes himself. With Wonder Woman, you’re writing from whole cloth, but trying to make it feel like you didn’t. To make it feel like it’s existed for 60 years, even though you’re making it up as you go along. But who she, and what the movie, is about, thematically, has never been a problem for me. But the steps along the way, it could be so easy for them to feel wrong. I won’t settle. She wouldn’t let me settle”

Wonder Woman is a scary character to write for. Is there any way to bring such a complex character to the screen?

Licensing Challenges

“Drat! I knew I shouldn’t have made a rope so easily accessible!”

It’s difficult to get the license to do a Wonder Woman movie in the first place. There have been licensing problems with Superman, but nothing like trying make Wonder Woman.

While details are shrouded in secrecy we know two things: it’s expensive and complicated. When Kelly was making his expensive Wonder Woman pilot, most of the cost came from “the studio requiring a rich license fee.”

Paul Dini, who produced Batman Beyond and other DC cartoons, said, “There’s kind of a licensing problem:  if we wanted to do Wonder Woman as a series, we could do that, [but] if it was a guest-shot, it was a little more problematic.  I don’t really understand it, it just turned out to be easier all the way around [to use Big Barda in the Batman Beyond episode ‘The Call’].”

Is Wonder Woman stuck in legal red tape?

Casting the Amazon

“That’s right boys. These legs go all the way up.”

Another problem with a Wonder Woman movie is casting. She has to have characteristics that are hard to come by in an actor. The Amazon Princess has to have a perfect mix of height, strength, compassion and love.

When David E. Kelly was casting his Wonder Woman show he told said, “I remember looking at several people and going, ‘Yeah, now good luck trying to find her.’ She’s got to be strong, smart, emotionally accessible – and oh yeah, an Amazon! Good luck. I remember speaking to DC and saying, ‘We may have to compromise on the physicality. We need to go with the best actress. And if the best actress is five-foot-five, we have to be open to that, because there’re too many layers for this character to also demand that she be nearly six feet tall.’

In order for a movie to work, they often look for big name actors.  Is there any actor in Hollywood that can play her?

Gender Bias

“Why does the Justice League pay Batman 4% more than me?!”

The final problem with doing Wonder Woman in anything, much less a movie, is a bias against strong female characters.

The late comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie talked about the gender bias in comics. “First, Wonder Woman is more of a symbol than a character.  Even more so than Superman, if you give her the slightest bit of personality, you’ll grievously offend a significant portion of her fans.

“More importantly, she’s female.  A large percentage of superhero fans just don’t like competent heroines.  There’s something about the genre that attracts those kinds of fans.

“Think about all the people who hate Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, Vixen even Supergirl.  How can anybody hate Supergirl?  The male characters, including the ones who aren’t very nice, don t inspire the ire that even the most likable female characters do…A fair number of guys who write this stuff are either disinterested in women with power or actively opposed to it.”

Gail Simone, an American comic book writer best known for DC’s Birds of Prey explained, “It is also a sad fact that a significant number of big name writers don’t care about Diana at all, which baffles me.  Great gimmicks, great origin, a great character I don’t get it.”

The sad truth is that, as much as we’d like to see a well-made Wonder Woman or Supergirl movie, there just isn’t enough of an audience to support a film.

Will movie audiences ever want to see a strong female character?

What do you think? Will we ever get a Wonder Woman movie? Would you like to see one?

[Image Source: io9.com]

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