We all waited for this movie, prayed for it to be a “good” movie, and cried tears of joy at its overwhelming success now solidified by historic box office numbers.
Everyone’s covering Wonder Woman because it’s a big deal and everyone wants to see what the DC Extended Universe would do with the female icon who struggled to get to the big screen over the course of several decades since her first comic debut. Superman? Batman? Spider-Man? Been there, done that a few times already.
But Wonder Woman? This was her moment.
Here at Culturess specifically, where the female perspective is the most important aspect of the site, her standalone debut under a female director was personal for most of us.
But Hollywood doesn’t look at the personal side of things. It’s a numbers game. While a studio may reward passion and commitment, nothing gets them on board quite like box office numbers. And a win for one is a win for many. Wonder Woman falls into a pool with films like Hunger Games (a money-making franchise with a female lead), Fifty Shades of Grey (previous record holder for a female-directed debut) and, like, any of Scarlett Johansson’s recent films. While Johansson has gotten her foot in the door with several action roles, Marvel won’t give Black Widow a film, and any strides Lucy made domestically were undone by how little Ghost in the Shell earned.
So there happened to be a lot of factors at play when it came to Wonder Woman‘s success. Especially what it meant for the future of women-driven cinema. And now that it’s officially broken $100 million at the box office (specifically, Box Office Mojo estimates it will hit $100.5), we can all breathe again and just bask in the glow of yellow, red and blue.
It’s so funny how the trades prepared for a small opening and the tides suddenly changed. As soon as early reviewers spent 140 characters on Twitter to share their excitement, things changed. And when Warner Bros. lifted the embargo, projections for the film skyrocketed.
Overseas, the film earned just as much and more with a $122.5 million haul. As Zack Snyder recently took to social media to say, we are all very proud of what Wonder Woman accomplished in her big screen debut. (Don’t turn your nose up at Zack either. He helped shape the story and was the person who cast the wonderful Gal Gadot in the first place.)
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But here’s the thing: her competition was Captain Underpants this weekend and we don’t know what will happen next weekend. Everyone was really hyped for Batman v Superman when it came out, but it dropped about 69% the following week. Wonder Woman would need to sustain her numbers to really drive it home.
Well, drive it home and get Warner Bros. to give a release date to her sequel.