For the last 75 years, Wonder Woman has existed as one of the most beloved pop culture icons -- and yet never got her own big screen adventure. While this certainly had something to do with not being able to get a proper script ready, surely another hanging issue for the studio has been concerns that boys won't go see a superhero movie with a female lead. We won't know until June if that's actually true -- but according to Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, it won't be hard for the blockbuster to find the attention of any audience because it's a movie really made to be enjoyed by everybody. Said the actress,
This is a truly universal story. It's such a universal story. It's a beautiful story about a beautiful soul trying to save the world and doing battle and she doesn't know much about what she's getting into. She's very naïve, but the love of her life is educating her and showing her, in a very sophisticated way, he shows her the reality that she got into. It's just a beautiful love story about a girl who's growing up.
Gal Gadot made these comments early last year when I joined a small group of other film journalists to visit the set of Wonder Woman while it was still in production. The actress was asked how the movie would be sold to boys who think that the blockbuster is exclusively for girls -- and while her point is a little all over the place, the general idea seems to be that the feature is specifically being built as a project not specifically for any audience, but instead for anyone who has a deep interest in character and wants to see an epic journey unfold.
Of course, the way that all audiences react to Wonder Woman will be an important subject of discussion when the film arrives this summer -- because while the movie certainly isn't the first female led superhero title, it is really the big one that has a chance to dispel long-lasting ideas about how male audiences will react. The comic book movie genre has been dominated by men for so long because companies think that young boys -- the supposedly biggest target demographic for the material -- only want to see boy characters on screen, but the reality is that Wonder Woman wouldn't be as popular as she is today if she wasn't widely accepted as a hero across gender lines. With its box office performance, the new film has the opportunity to put that reality into number figures, which is really the only thing that ultimately matters to the big decision makers within the industry.
Audiences will finally get to see this story of a young girl growing up when Wonder Woman arrives in theaters on June 2nd of this year. Hit the comments section below to tell us your thoughts on the upcoming blockbuster, and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest updates and news about the project.
