(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Tue 13 January 2026 23:30, UK
Most people argue that, by now, the superhero genre has well and truly exhausted itself, but even fewer understand the battles that are constantly going on behind the scenes when it comes to other corners of the genre.
Although it doesn’t feel like it, the superhero boom had been brewing long before the Marvel oversaturation of 2021 and beyond. People had been looking for more of these stories for a while, but it only really took off when studios realised that it was an unmatched kind of profitability they’d be tapping into, reaching global audiences with the potential to stretch stories into longer, franchise-level productions.
At the same time, however, it doesn’t take much to realise why that was the case, becausefter all, although different in stories and characters, most of them adhered to a similar set of rules, with heroic male lead characters in action-packed worlds built around a familiar, escapist us-versus-the-world trope, and n these worlds, female superheroes were typically involved only as subplots or side characters, and those who did get their own movies usually did so only after long conversations behind the scenes about how to actually make it work.
And that’s not the only hurdle to jump through. Studios are also reluctant to run with such ideas, not just because they don’t believe they’ll sell as well, but because they’ve also witnessed the many times these movies have flopped. In the past, people have tried to give female superheroes their own films, but due to timing, poor execution and a lack of promotion or other setbacks, it hasn’t worked out.
These are all the challenges that director Patty Jenkins was more than aware of when it came to bringing the Wonder Woman project to life, having witnessed just how difficult it is to fight for people to believe in a vision before it’s had time to even prove itself.
Discussing these issues with Glamour, Jenkins elaborated on the previous superhero movies that caused hesitancy among studio execs, and how she overcame them when it came to Wonder Woman. “They were all freaked out by all the female superhero films that had failed, the smaller ones that had failed,” she said. “Also, Christopher Nolan was making the Dark Knight thing, so I think they were just trying to figure out what they were doing with DC at that time.”
Considering that 2004’s Catwoman with Halle Berry hadn’t done that well, as was the case for 2005’s Elektra, too, Jenkins said that it was a push to get Wonder Woman over the line, and that it got pulled in several different directions because of “mistrust” from studios and their desire to try out “a different way of doing things”.
“Even when I first joined Wonder Woman, it was like, ‘Uhh, yeah, OK, but let’s do it this other way,’” she went on. “But I was like, ‘Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads off…. I’m a Wonder Woman fan, that’s not what we’re looking for.’ Still, I could feel that shaky nervousness [on their part] from my point of view.”
Things weren’t easy for Jenkins, especially as it hadn’t worked out with the project when it had previously been in the hands of another director. But then, they approached Jenkins about doing it her way, and she took the risks in her stride and went ahead with her original vision, ensuring that Wonder Woman was the box office success that it was always supposed to be.
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