"Wonder Woman," the comic-book epic poised to dominate the box office this weekend, also shatters one of the remaining glass ceilings for women — directing big-budget, Hollywood superhero movies.
If director Patty Jenkins succeeds in turning the story of the Amazonian princess into a blockbuster, she could pave the way for more acceptance of women at the helm of the movie industry's most financially important pictures. The feature is already a hit with critics, scoring among the best Marvel and DC Comics movies on review aggregator RottenTomatoes, and is headed toward a $111 million opening weekend in North American theaters, according to BoxOfficePro. That would make it one of the year's biggest movies.
The film and television industries are under pressure to usher in more diversity behind the camera, with federal regulators making an inquiry last year into discrimination by studios. Just 4 percent of all directors across 1,000 top movies from 2007 to 2016 were female, and of those only three were black women, according to Stacy Smith, an associate professor at the University of Southern California. Jenkins has spent most of her career in television and has a single previous feature to her credit — the 2003 drama "Monster," which earned an acting Oscar for Charlize Theron.