Luke Owen looks at the news of a solo Black Widow movie…
Last week Marvel Cinematic Universe lord and master Kevin Feige dropped a tidbit of news that a lot of fans have been clamouring for some time: a solo Black Widow movie. Seemingly ever since she debuted in Iron Man 2 is 2010, MCU viewers have been begging Marvel to pull the trigger on her own outing as it would be something fresh and different. Our own Tony Black even posted this article about how a Black Widow movie is something that needs to happen. Those who have shamed Marvel in the past for not producing female-led movies took glee in pointing out it’s taken them nearly a decade to realise it’s what some fans want.
But there is a very simple reason why Marvel haven’t made a female-led superhero movie yet. You may argue that it’s not a valid reason (and you’d have a point), but it’s why Black Widow hasn’t had a solo movie yet and why it will have been over twenty films before Captain Marvel and The Wasp make their cinematic debuts.
Historically, female-led superhero movies aren’t money-earners. True story.
To look at this, we have to go right back to the beginning with Richard Donner’s Superman: The Motion Picture in 1978. The film was a great success for Warner Bros. and pulled in tremendous box office numbers with critical applaud and its sequel, Superman II, went through various production hiccups including losing its director but still made over $100 million at the box office. In 1983 Warner Bros. released Superman III, but the effects of the Man of Steel’s box office waning popularity in cinema was being felt as the movie only made $58 million – quite the difference to the $300 million Superman: The Motion Picture made. In an effort to shake things up, Tristar released Supergirl starring Helen Slater as Kal-El’s cousin Kara Zor-El in 1984 with a cast that also included Faye Dunaway and Peter O’Toole. However poor reviews led to a bad audience reception, and the movie made just $14 million at the box office. Even the Cannon released Superman IV: The Quest For Peace – thought to be one of the worst superhero movies of all-time – earned more than Supergirl.
In the 1990s it didn’t get much better. Though not as high profile as Supergirl, we got comic book adaptations of Barb Wire and Tank Girl – both of which were box office bombs. Despite starring Pamela Anderson – who was the hottest actor at the time thanks in part to Baywatch – pulled in a miserable $3 million against a fairly low $9 million budget. Tank Girl, which starred Lori Petty, had a much bigger price tag of $25 million but only managed $4 million at the box office. Compare that to the box office takings of male-led comic book movies Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($201 million), Spawn ($87 million) and The Crow ($50 million).
As we move into the new millennium and the rebirth of the comic book movie following the smash successes of Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, it starts to look even worse for female-led superhero movies. In 2003 Ben Affleck donned red leather to play The Man Without Fear in Daredevil, which served as a platform to introduce Elektra who got her own movie two years later. Sadly, while Daredevil made $179 million worldwide, Elektra made just $56 million with only $24 million of that coming from domestic screenings. Worse yet, while Warner Bros. geared up for their relaunch of the Batman franchise under Christopher Nolan’s watch, they released the critically-derided Catwoman starring Oscar winner Halle Berry. Not only would it win several Razzies – which were accepted by Berry herself – it only made $82 million worldwide against a massive budget of $100 million. The female-led superhero movie’s fate was sealed when Nolan’s Batman Begins earned $374 million worldwide, and its follow-up The Dark Knight made over $1 billion.
Now I know what you’re thinking: it’s unfair to compare Supergirl to Superman or Tank Girl to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Catwoman to The Dark Knight. And you’re right, sort of.
Cascararogue says
I completely agree with you that studios like success’ but at the same time none of the female starring films of the past were of the same standard of the male standard films we were getting in the 90s. The resurgence of well written characters now will hopefully re-address this.
Kyle Posey says
I think they’ve just been more concerned with setting up and establishing ACTUAL superheroes. They can start to branch out now, I’m sure, but up until now I think that they’ve just been very focused on getting their core heroes in a good place within the market.
Timo Qvintus says
Core heroes? Please explain Blade, Mystery Men, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Swamp-Thing, Hellboy, Constantine, Crow, Steel, Tank Girl, Howard The Duck, Man Thing..
Kyle Posey says
I didn’t know they were MCU. Also, aren’t a few of those not even Marvel at all?
Timo Qvintus says
Oh, you were directly addressing the title? My bad. The article talks about the lack of female-led genre movies in general, and you didn’t specify who you meant by “they”.
Kyle Posey says
Ah yeah, I see what happened there. Yeah I was addressing more about Widow in particular, rather than female heroes as a whole.
AcuraT says
This article points out all the failures of women leads to support its view but fails to mention the successes with woman leads after the year 2000.
Missed movie #1 – Laura Croft: Tomb Raider. Made for $100 million it starred a big star in
Angelina Jolie and made “only” $274.7 million globally, a success. Made in 2001.
Missed movie #2 – Laura Croft: The Cradle of Life. This one is mentioned by the article as “underperforming expectations” because the writer did not want to mention (as it does not support his case) that it made money as well. It cost a little less at $95 million to make but it still made $156.5 million and was profitable. Made in 2003.
Missed movie #3 – The Fifth Element made in 1997 starring Mila Jovonvich in her first action film. Of course this had Bruce Willis helping out so I guess you can exclude it although the person with “superpowers” is a woman. It made $264 million on a budget of $90 million
Missed move #4 – Resident Evil – again starring Mila Jovonvich, this low budget $35 million film made $102.4 million and made a large profit, again with a female hero (not superhero, but a hero in any case).
Missed movie #5 – Resident Evil: Apocalypse again starring Jovonvich this time made $129.3 million on a budget of $45 million. Solidly profitable.
Missed move # 6 – Resident Evil: Extinction with the same star. Made $147.7 million on a budget of $45 million. Again solidly profitable.
Missed movie # 7 – Resident Evil: Afterlife with Mila Jovonvich makes $296.2 million on a budget of $60 million. The most successful of the series so far.
Missed move #8 – Resident Evil: Retribution which made $240.2 million on a budget of $65 million.
I don’t disagree that it is hard to make money with a female superhero film, but those seven that were avoided show it is quite possible. This does not count “The Fifth Element” (the 3rd movie I listed) which was lead by a superpowered female but has a male supporting cast (and a substantial one at that).
I personally think the movies are profitable in many cases, but they are not the huge blockbusters of the male superhero films. As a result, the female led ones are fewer and further apart – but as these 7 (or 8) show it is quite possible to make substantial money with female superheros leading. It is not hurting either that Jessica Jones on Netflix just got renewed for a second season based on solid ratings. With more successes like the above and now emerging, we may just see more of them sooner than you think (besides Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman).
Timo Qvintus says
None of the movies you mentioned are superhero-movies. This article is about why there are no female-led superhero-movies. You might as well throw in statistics of any given Sandra Bullock movie. Both Resident Evil and Lara Croft are based on video games, and these specific franchises are getting sequels over and over and over. And Fifth Element was a success on the strength of it’s whole cast, not due to the annoying (IMO) Jovovich.
Luke Owen says
The article was designed to focus solely on superhero movies, so I wasn’t ignoring the movies you listed because they “didn’t support my argument”, I left them off because they weren’t relevant to my argument.
But to answer some of your points:
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life did make money at the box office, but not enough. I’ve spoken with the producers, actors, writers and directors and they all told me that the “disappointing” box office return for the second movie meant a third one never got a greenlight – despite plans in place for one. So, yeah, it was a box office disappointment.
I’m not sure the Fifth Element is a good example as the film was sold around Bruce Willis and not Milla Jovovich. That would be like saying Iron Man 2 was successful because Scarlett Johnansson was in it.
The Resident Evil movies are funny ones because of the material they come from. Anderson has told me that while Mortal Kombat was a big success (over $100 million worldwide), no one in Hollywood respected the movie. They respected the money it made but not the movie itself, which I think has translated into the RE franchise. Further to that, the RE franchise wasn’t initially a “Hollywood franchise”. It was a French-German production with a British-German crew and a Russian lead. Michelle Rodriguez is the only ‘real’ American in the movie, and that’s because they had a quota of American actors they could use and she along with Jovovich – who is counted as an American actor despite being Russian – took up that quota. They were in talks to have David Boreanaz involved, but they couldn’t have another American actor. Anyway Sony – who signed on to distribute the first movie late in the day – nearly released the movie straight to DVD because they felt there was no audience for it. Jovovich has said she wouldn’t have been the lead of the movie had it been made in the Hollywood system because they don’t trust female leads. Once the film was a success, Sony suddenly became interested in it and actually put money into future films (although Anderson has told me that it wasn’t until the fifth and sixth films where he was finally given a budget where he could have free reign to do what he wanted). But I don’t think anyone ‘respects’ the series – much like they didn’t with Mortal Kombat – and therefore don’t see them as successful models to follow. If they did, we would have seen more video game movies made off the back of Resident Evil: Afterlife (currently the biggest earner of the series). We saw an influx after the first movie (Doom, Hitman and Silent Hill were all made off the back of it), but none of them gained traction and subsequently the video game movie genre was to remain untouched.
The oddest part of your comment though is at the end you completely echo my sentiment but pose it as an argument against my writing.
AcuraT says
I appreciate your response but I find interesting how you state you focused only on superhero films but mentioned “Tomb Raider” in your own article which according to your definition, is not a superhero film and as a result, not respected in the industry just like you claim about Mortal Combat and Resident Evil. The background you give is interesting, but you sort of broke your own rules mentioning Tomb Raider in your article and then state I cannot use video game superheros as well.
I did mention that The Fifth Element broke your rules because it did have a surrounding male cast so at least I was clear about that initially.
I was not contradicting myself – the films were all successes. They just were not as “big” successes as the male films. I guess in the end I don’t disagree with you but I do disagree that women have not succeeded in lead action superhero-like rolls as you stated. I personally believe it is because the movies I listed which were based on games were entertaining on a certain level (as you state, some did it on humor), and that Electra, Supergirl, Catwoman, and the examples you gave were not as entertaining.
It is also why I think if Wonder Woman is well written that it will succeed where the past films have failed. Not because times have changed, but because simply put – it becomes a better film than those listed in your article. In the end good films with good stories sell, bad ones, not as much (which is why Superman Vs. Batman is regarded by some as disappointing, while Captain America: Civil War, probably will not be).
Gary@FlickeringMyth says
I’m not sure Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life can be considered a success at all and certainly not profitable for the studio during its theatrical run. It’s budget was $95 million, not including marketing. It grossed $156.5 million. Paramount would only have seen around half of that back, meaning a loss for them.
I imagine they’d have expected to make double that at the box office considering it had Angelina Jolie in the lead, was following a decent-sized hit in the first movie, and was based on one of the most popular video game franchises of all time.
I also don’t think you can attribute the success of Fifth Element and Resident Evil to Milla Jovovich being in them. Swap her out for anyone else, male or female, and they’d have made around the same.
Vos_L says
“it’s what some fans want”…..they don’t make movies because “some” fans want a movie though. Black Widow is pretty far down the pecking order in terms of superheroes in the Marvel comic book universe…which is why she didn’t get a solo movie….the standing of the actress far outweighs the standing of the character. As it is, she’s had major roles in 5 movies so far…..do we really need a “solo” movie? Neither of the last two Cap movies were “solo” movies….Ant-man’s next movie is a duo with Wasp….Thor gets Hulk as a team-up character in Ragnarok….Iron Man is appearing in the new Spider-man movie…even War Machine had a big supporting role in Iron Man 3. They aren’t really doing “solo” movies any longer for characters that have been established in the MCU. A Widow team-up movie with Hawkeye, Falcon and/or Scarlet Witch could be interesting….or even bringing Daredevil into a movie to team-up with her, given their history together in the comics…..but there’s no real need to give her a “solo” movie just for the sake of giving her a solo movie.