Wonder Woman has been making waves since she and her eponymous film hit theaters earlier this month. It opened strong, and has maintained a 92 percent rating with critics over on Rotten Tomatoes, and it continues to rake in cash for Warner Bros. and accolades for director Patty Jenkins. Now, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the movie has pulled in an estimated $652 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie directed by a woman.
The next-closest movie from a woman director is Phyllida Lloyd’s Mamma Mia!, which pulled in $609.8 million worldwide.
Domestically, EW points out that Wonder Woman has already surpassed superhero movies like Man of Steel, while it’s equal to the original Iron Man and on the way to surpassing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. It’s just outside the top 100 highest-grossing films according to Box Office Mojo, and we’re fully expecting to see it in the top 100 by the time it’s done.
A new hope
All of this is great news for the DC Extended Universe. We can expect Jenkins to retain a lot of control over the inevitable Wonder Woman sequel, and we’d be surprised if the next movies in the series don’t shift in tone a little bit. Justice League is a bit too near-future for that movie to change much, but there are still movies for Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, and Batman on the way, as well as, I’m sure another Superman film.
I’m hoping, too, that as executives look at the truckloads of cash rolling into Warner Bros., they’re going to notice things like the fact that, yes, there is room for awesome women heroes at the box office, and that women directors can make not just great movies, but truly mass-market movies that appeal worldwide and at home. More kinds of people making more kinds of movies can only be good.