The biggest news I wanted to comment on is NBC's decision not to pick up the much hyped Wonder Woman pilot. They certainly busted their asses trying to make it work, with all the retooling, having screenings in theaters to gauge audience reaction (which was basically, "Meh. It's no Smallville."). It's probably for the best, although I would still LOVE to see it. Hopefully, it'll be offered on iTunes or as a DVD extra on an upcoming release.My reaction is honestly relief. I'm WAY okay with NO Wonder Woman versus terrible Wonder Woman or some nonsense that ISN'T Wonder Woman at all, but just using the name, which sounds like this was. I mean, I'm okay with open interpretation... you can't be slavishly devoted to the source material IF there are elements that may work in one medium and not in another.
There are a couple of issues that I wanted to address, though, which I have previously touched on, but they bear repeating. First... why IS there so much pressure on Wonder Woman? I actually see it with Green Lantern, too. There's ALL this pressure on Green Lantern's movie. There's so much scrutiny and speculation, whereas you don't really see that with ANY of the Marvel movies. People are just plain hyped and excited to see Thor (which, with all that I've been busy with lately, I still haven't!) and Captain America. And there's no pressure at all, beyond "Hope this doesn't suck!" They're just light, fun popcorn movies and that's all anyone wants out of them. It's funny because Marvel's typically licensed out their properties to other companies to actually film, so you'd think they'd have a harder time with it, whereas DC is owned by Warner Brothers which is one of the hugest names in entertainment, YET they struggle with their adaptations. The recent Batman stuff has been successful, but I and a lot of fans have problems with them. Superman Returns did disappointingly at the box office.
One thing is that one of the Top Dogs (tried looking up his name, but couldn't find it and it's not that important anyway) was disappointed in the "slow" sales of the Wonder Woman animated movie, so he declared that no more of these movies would star female heroes. This meant that a planned Batgirl: Year One movie was abandoned and that when the Supergirl-centric Apocalypse movie was released recently, it was entitled Superman/Batman: Apocalypse with Supergirl only depicted on the cover in her skanky "bad girl" costume from the part in the movie where Darkseid takes over her mind. These decisions are really arbitrary and knee-gut, it seems.
Green Lantern: First Flight also sold "slowly" so they declared that they would no longer make ANY of these animated movies unless Superman or Batman were the star and the recent shorts collection of PREVIOUSLY RELEASED material with the exception of a 20-minute Superman/Shazam team up also sold poorly, so they decided not to make any more shorts, even though those were fucking brilliant and better than the movies they led into! GL: First Flight sold slowly and ultimately sold fewer copies than Wonder Woman... yet who has a live-action, multi-million dollar movie coming out in a couple of weeks?
WHICH, brings us to the old "female super heroes don't sell" argument. Well, ABC picked up Charlie's Angels who had a successful live-action movie years ago (and one that was less-so), so at least someone thinks they do. Yeah, I can get that some would argue that the Angels aren't super heroes... they are at least action heroes. And what about Sarah Conner, Ripley and Lara Croft? But no, the only examples anyone ever lists are Catwoman and Elektra.
Can I point out that The Hulk has bombed TWICE now? Does anyone say, "Male heroes don't sell. Look at The Hulk and Ghost Rider and Jonah Hex and The Punisher!" Daredevil may not have tanked exactly, but it underperformed and everyone hated it. Yet, they're making another one! No one says, "Hmmm, The Hulk tanked. (TWICE!!!) There's something wrong with him. Let's make him more neurotic and give him body image issues and make him pine over his ex-girlfriend. Oh and can we set a scene to "Single Ladies." Oh and we should make his costume more concealing and practical."
The one "saving grace" is poor Superman Returns. It was the only time that a male hero was sort of subjected to the same objectification of a female, with so much focus on his looks, whether the film under-performed because people didn't like his costume and best of all, whether or not millions were spent making him more or less endowed. Yes, the movie didn't do well... but they're making a new one and yet, look at Wonder Woman. Hell, look at any female hero. NONE of them are even being given a SHOT! Because "female heroes don't sell." Uh huh.
This blog is all over the place, today! Okay, so Tonner continues producing their DC Stars line, even though I can't afford them and if I am not willing to spend the money on them, I don't see who IS! I mean, I am DC Heroine Fan #1 and I can't even justify them. I have the first several they made, the first Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, Superman, Lois Lane, Aquaman and Mera. Wait... do I have Batman? I might. No, I don't think so. I even have THE LAST Storm, Aquaman's seahorse (not the X-Woman), it was their display piece at ComiCon that the guy from my comic shop convinced them to sell to him for me! Woop woop!This line flies in the face of the "female heroes don't sell" mentality because not only are they still cranking them out, they're getting more obscure! The line started with the big names, but then they added a really impressive Hawkgirl, with real feathery wings.
Lately, they've added Starfire and have Raven (left) and Dove (above) in the works. You have no idea how much I want a fucking $200 Dove doll JUST FOR THE AUDACITY!!! Who in their right mind would pay $200 for a doll based on DOVE?! I'm gonna have to find a way to come up with that money! Do they still buy plasma? That Raven is really sweet too! Hey, whatever happened to that talk about Raven getting a TV show? I think that would rule! Sigh, okay this is long enough! It's good to be back!
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