It's no secret Hollywood hasn't made many movies about female super heroes.
In the silver screen comic book universe, the number of solo films dedicated to female superheroes can fit on one hand. Studios have long attributed the gap in numbers to poor ticket sales. However, as the newest addition to that short list, Wonder Woman's performance at the box office has smashed the precedent its predecessors have suffered.
The film, directed by Patty Jenkins, celebrated a $223 million worldwide opening weekend—and marked the best domestic opening for a female director in film history. Needless to say, the blockbuster hit let the naysayers roll right off of Wonder Woman's shield.
Beyond the dollar signs and undeniable popularity of Wonder Woman's first foray on the big screen, many may be wondering how the movie achieved such success when the industry had so long denied such material. In short, it just needed a chance.
The director stayed true to her vision.
When reading interviews with Jenkins about the project, it's clear that she gave the entire film a great deal of thought, but some questioned her vision. As one example, some couldn't understand why she wanted her heroine to cross No Man's Land, a pivotal moment in the movie when Diana Prince assumes her role as a full-fledged superhero, shield and all.
"I think that in superhero movies, they fight other people, they fight villains," Jenkins told Fandango. "So when I started to really hunker in on the significance of No Man's Land, there were a couple people who were deeply confused, wondering, like, 'Well, what is she going to do? How many bullets can she fight?' And I kept saying, ‘It's not about that. This is a different scene than that. This is a scene about her becoming Wonder Woman.'"
"It's my favorite scene in the movie and it's the most important scene in the movie," she continued. "It's also the scene that made the least sense to other people going in, which is why it's a wonderful victory for me."
It was the first—but also had some iconic company.
It can be even more difficult for a character to attract fans if they are also competing with fellow stars' previous versions, like Spider-Man or Batman for example. Fortunately for Gadot, this was Diana Prince's first live action visit to the silver screen.
Simultaneously, however, she benefitted from the fact that Lynda Carter had made the character iconic on the small screen in the '70s. She had generated a fan base for Diana Prince, but it had been so many decades since the show that Gadot had the opportunity to attract an entirely new generation of fans, too.
Plus, Carter finally got to welcome someone new to the club. As she told E! News, "It's great to have company."
The timing was perfect.
While the multi-decade wait for Wonder Woman to return in live action wasn't exactly favorable, it did give all of the time for the film to be properly executed without the pressure of a franchise rollout. Not to mention, it generated plenty of suspense for the original fans.
Simultaneously, the movie came at a time where female-driven action films and franchises—The Hunger Games and Mad Max: Fury Road to name a few—have dominated the box office and demonstrated the power of female-led projects and moviegoers' hunger for them.
Diana Prince is a hero everyone roots for.
You can't talk about the film's success without highlighting its center—Wonder Woman herself. For a movie to succeed, people have to want to pay for a ticket to see it. Diana Prince embodies someone worthy of her legions of fans—from the strength of her sword to the strength of her character.
As Jenkins described to The Los Angeles Times, "She's good, she means well, she's kind, she's loving."