How Wonder woman socked it to Hollywood’s SexiStS
Chauvinist producers said an all-female action movie couldn’t work. But with cinemas filled with girls-only audiences and record takings ...
Sword-wielding, corsetclad female warriors who save the world — all without smudging their lipstick.
on paper, it sounds more like a male fantasy than something any woman would want to see.
But wonder woman — the Hollywood blockbuster released last week that has made an astounding £180 million at the box office so far — is taking the nation by storm.
The secret to its success is female viewers, who have been flooding to cinemas in their droves . . . and responding with standing ovations.
no wonder they love it: not only are the protagonist and most of the cast female, but behind the camera (from the director to the production designer, set decorator and visual effects producer) there’s an army of women.
in contrast to many summer releases, this is an action film aimed squarely at the female market. Many say its winning stroke is that women do not play the victim in it — unusual for mainstream movies.
The other secret is that the film shows men being beaten to a pulp by a woman — an act that many on social media are saying they find rather guiltily satisfying. Based on the comic book super-heroine created in 1941, wonder woman charts the story of diana Prince, an Amazonian goddess who fights german world war i soldiers and falls in love with a pilot.
The plot may be preposterous, but fans can’t get enough of it.
Already dubbed the hit of the summer, the film has been wowing critics and impressing mums, who are hailing wonder woman as a role model for their daughters.
From its star’s extraordinary story to the sold- out single- sex screenings, we look behind the scenes of this silver screen phenomenon.
STAR WHO WAS A REAL-LIFE SOLDIER
You’ve probably never heard of gal gadot, the 32-year-old israeli actress who plays the lead. no wonder: it’s her first major role.
The striking brunette is the daughter of a teacher and an engineer and lives in Tel Aviv with her husband of eight years, 38year-old property developer Yaron versano, and two daughters.
Her unusual name — pronounced ‘ goll ga- dote’ — is Hebrew: gal means ‘wave’ and gadot means ‘riverbanks’.
Her Cv reads like that of a real-life wonder woman.
Aged 20, gal was called up for military service and spent two years as a combat instructor in the israeli defense Forces, during which she had front-line training.
She went on to study law and international relations, then won the Miss israel beauty pageant in 2004 (having been scouted in a shopping centre). opportunity soon came knocking: in 2007, she was spotted by a British casting director who asked her to audition for the role of a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace, the second daniel Craig 007 film.
She didn’t get the part, but caught the acting bug, and was cast in wonder woman after open auditions in 2015.
For the part, gal had extensive training in martial arts, horseriding, kickboxing and swordsmanship, as well as enduring a diet of salmon and pasta to help her gain 17lb of muscle.
‘i had a tent in the studio and every time we had a break, i went training,’ she reveals.
if that wasn’t impressive enough, gal filmed several scenes while pregnant with her youngest daughter, Maya, who was born in March. during reshoots last november, the actress was five months pregnant and had to wear a special costume fitted with a ‘green screen’ over her stomach, so the bump could be edited out — and replaced with shots of her flat, pre-pregnancy figure — in post-production.
ISLAND OF THE FEMALE WARRIORS
BASed on the all-female island of Themyscira, a fictional paradise created by the gods of Mount olympus, it’s no wonder men are hard to come by.
in the opening sequences of the film, we watch the female warriors practising their fighting skills, riding around on white horses in revealing gold armour and generally revelling in the lack of menfolk.
in fact, they’re so scarce that not a single man appears on screen for the first 15 minutes — and, when he does, he’s a bedraggled and half- drowned pilot (played by Chris Pine) who’s washed up on a beach after a plane crash.
( Quite soon afterwards, he strips completely naked and jumps in a bath so wonder woman can tend to his wound, which may go some way to explaining fans’ enthusiastic praise.)
unusually for a Hollywood blockbuster, around 60 per cent of the cast is female, and the supporting actors are all women: robin
Wright ( from the criticallyacclaimed House Of Cards), Connie Nielsen ( from Ridley Scott’s Gladiator) and english actress Lucy Davis, known for her TV role in The Office.
The fairer sex even plays the villain: Doctor Poison, a mad scientist who concocts deadly gasses, is portrayed by Spanish actress elena Anaya.
Much of the action was also filmed in Britain, with locations including the Kent village of Lower Halstow, King’s Cross Station and London’s Trafalgar Square.
The 250- strong crew set up in November 2015 and filming wrapped in March 2016, before relocating to Italy and France. The main problem was the weather: Gal’s skimpy costumes left her shivering on set, requiring a runner to stand just out of shot holding a puffa jacket and snow boots.
THE £115m MEGA-BUDGET
WONDeR Woman is only the second female-directed film to command a budget of more than £100 million, after K- 19: The Widowmaker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow in 2002.
Patty Jenkins had £115 million to play with, allowing her to splash out on locations, costumes and special effects.
But, she says, it was still ‘20 per cent too little money for what you’re trying to do’.
Almost £2.5 million has been spent on TV advertising alone. Warner Bros is hoping a merchandise range will help recoup some of the costs. Film fans can snap up Wonder Woman branded phone covers (£ 26.85), faux gold cuffs (£37) and stainless steel watches (£77).
SHOWINGS WHERE BOYS ARE BANNED
IN A move that angered many male comic book fans, some cinemas have been offering womenonly Wonder Woman screenings.
This week, the Grosvenor Cinema in Glasgow held a single- sex showing, open to ‘people who identify as women only’. everyone working on the night, from projectionists to popcorn sellers, was female. The event was a sellout and more are planned nationwide. Across the Atlantic, venues in Austin, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York, have also hosted ‘No Guys Allowed’ events.
The screenings were criticised online, with some claiming they were ‘illegal’ and in breach of anti-discrimination laws.
even ordinary, prime- time showings of the film are being dominated by females: cinema staff up and down the country report screens packed full of cheering women — many with three generations enjoying the film together.
INSPIRED BY A MENAGE-A-TROIS
AFTeR several incarnations, the script ended up remarkably close to the original story, written in 1941 by William Moulton Marston, a Harvard-trained psychologist and inventor. William thought traditional comic book heroes were sexist and violent. So, when he was hired by comic publisher Max Gaines to consult on a new character, he decided she should be female. He wrote: ‘The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.’ He drew his inspiration from two important women in his life: his wife, elizabeth, a lawyer and fellow psychologist, and his mistress, Olive Byrne, a former student with a penchant for wearing heavy bronze bracelets. Wonder Woman was initially called Suprema and her superpower was a magic lasso which forced those in its grip to tell the truth — the comic book version of the polygraph machine, or lie detector, of which William was the real-life co-inventor. elizabeth, Olive and William lived together in an unusual love triangle: Olive, who had two children with her lover, stayed at home to look after elizabeth’s kids while she worked. When he died in 1947, aged 53, the two women continued to live together until their deaths. Their stranger-than-fiction life story is being made into a film of its own, starring British actors Luke evans and Rebecca Hall.
TWENTY YEARS IN THE MAKING
MAKING a Hollywood blockbuster takes time — but Wonder Woman, for which the wheels were set in motion back in 1996, really takes the biscuit.
Sandra Bullock was initially to take the lead role, but it wasn’t until 2005 that a director — Joss Whedon, the man behind cult Nineties TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer — came on board, reportedly for £2.3 million.
After nearly two years, having failed to finish the script, he left.
In 2010, Warner Bros reiterated its commitment to the film, with Diane Nelson, head of DC entertainment, saying: ‘We are still trying right now, but she’s tricky.’
Next, Wonder Woman was reimagined as an action-comedy film, and in 2013 the studio began searching for a female director.
The idea to move the plot to World War I (in the original comic book it was World War II) surfaced as late as 2015.
SPECIAL EFFECTS BANG ON TARGET
IN 1975, Lynda Carter — TV’s Wonder Woman — famously did her own stunts, including dangling from a flying helicopter. Forty years later, things have moved on. The new film uses a mix of computer- generated technology and practical action to great effect.
The battle scenes were filmed in dug-out trenches on a beach, with several tons of mud, dirt and sand trucked in for authenticity.
Actors wore wires suspended from cranes to enable them to jump and flip, while the swordfighting was choreographed like a dance. But computers have been used to add in bullets and arrows.