GOLDEN TOUCH
Oh, everyone knew the 2017 film was coming, but nobody expected the scale of its success. It had been budgeted as, and written about, like just another superhero movie, a nice-to-have while we got ready for the real business of Justice League. Despite the long history and popularity of the character, and the warm reaction to Gal Gadot’s first appearance in the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, when it finally arrived, the film still had the air of a sleeper hit.
“We were underdogs,” Gadot tells Empire now. “It was the first time for all of us to shoot a tentpole movie by ourselves, and I don’t think anybody thought it was going to perform the way it performed.” That was to the tune of $800 million worldwide, bigger than Justice League and significantly better reviewed.
NO-ONE WAS QUITE READY FOR WONDER WOMAN.
Little girls turned up to screenings in costume; at Comic-Con, Gadot posed with them and cheered them on. Companies rushed out Wonder Woman slankets and “Daughters Of Themyscira” bombers. It felt like a sea change in who gets to make an impact in the cinema, changing the game in the same way that Bridesmaids or Get Out did. Tweeter @megsauce summed it up: “NO WONDER WHITE MEN ARE SO OBSCENELY CONFIDENT ALL THE TIME. I SAW ONE WOMAN HERO MOVIE AND I’M READY TO FIGHT A THOUSAND DUDES BAREHANDED.”
Just one catch: that success meant they’d be asked do it again, without the element of surprise. And just because Zeus is your dad, it doesn’t mean that lightning will strike twice.
“I was very supported [on the first film], but there was fear because I was shifting the direction and the tone,” says director Patty Jenkins when sits down with her in LA in January. “This time, people understood that it had worked
