Hol­ly­wood mustn’t let Pat­ty Jenk­ins become the excep­tion that proves the rule

Pat­ty Jenk­ins will return to direct the Won­der Woman sequel, accord­ing to Vari­ety. In pure busi­ness terms this makes a lot of sense, giv­en that the first film took more than $800m at the world­wide box office, becom­ing the high­est-gross­ing live-action movie by a female direc­tor ever. The move is undoubt­ed­ly a pos­i­tive one and the impor­tance of hav­ing female-cen­tric super­hero films direct­ed by women can­not be overstated.

The deal will make Jenk­ins the high­est paid female film direc­tor in his­to­ry, seem­ing­ly paving the way for her cel­lu­loid sis­ters. And yet the intense scruti­ny sur­round­ing Jenk­ins, cou­pled with the fever­ish spec­u­la­tion over her salary, is all a bit uncom­fort­able. While this is a big step in the right direc­tion, all the self-con­grat­u­la­to­ry back­slap­ping on the part of the indus­try feels a lit­tle premature.

Despite Jenk­ins’ rise to Hollywood’s top table, women are still severe­ly under-rep­re­sent­ed behind the cam­era. In 2016, men made up more than 90 per cent of the total num­ber of direc­tors who worked on the 250 high­est-gross­ing the­atri­cal releas­es. Con­sid­er also that up until now only Jenk­ins and Kathryn Bigelow have direct­ed films with a bud­get in excess of $100 mil­lion (2002’s K‑19: The Wid­ow­mak­er being the trail­blaz­er). In this con­text it doesn’t appear that a sig­nif­i­cant amount of progress has been made, despite pre­vi­ous ​‘prece­dents’ being set.

Pre­dictably, the amount of mon­ey Jenk­ins will bank as a result of the Won­der Woman sequel has gen­er­at­ed a lot of inter­est online. It stands to rea­son that mak­ing block­busters mer­its a block­buster salary, yet the fact that one woman’s earn­ings – did any­one ask David Ayer how much he made on Sui­cide Squad? – has gen­er­at­ed such curios­i­ty is extreme­ly telling.

Won­der Woman 2 was con­firmed sev­er­al months ago, and the delay in announc­ing Jenk­ins as its direc­tor was report­ed­ly due to her nego­ti­at­ing a high­er fee than the $1m she received for Won­der Woman (she will report­ed­ly get some­where between $7 – 9m for the sequel; rough­ly the same as Zack Sny­der took home for Man of Steel). Bridg­ing the salary gap between male and female direc­tors is one thing, but Hol­ly­wood mustn’t let Jenk­ins become the excep­tion that proves the rule.

The direc­tor-star pair­ing of Jenk­ins and Gal Gadot was undoubt­ed­ly a major fac­tor in the first film’s suc­cess, but the cyn­ic in me won­ders whether this deal stems as much from Warn­er Bros’ eager­ness to retain the good­will of the pay­ing pub­lic as any­thing else. Clear­ly this cre­ative part­ner­ship is a strong and fruit­ful one, but the fem­i­nist bub­ble sur­round­ing the film and its sequel is too good a PR sto­ry to pass up.

In an indus­try with a long his­to­ry of try­ing to pass off sym­bol­ic ges­tures as affir­ma­tive action, it seems a no-brain­er to keep Jenk­ins on in such a promi­nent role. If Hol­ly­wood is seri­ous about not just address­ing but fix­ing the sys­temic issue of gen­der inequal­i­ty, it needs to start invit­ing female direc­tors to the par­ty a lot more often.

With so many block­buster fran­chis­es in the works, now is the per­fect time for oth­er female direc­tors to fol­low in Jenk­ins’ foot­steps. There’s a wealth of female tal­ent out there, and seem­ing­ly every­one out­side of Hol­ly­wood knows it. So, who would you like to see be giv­en the keys to the next X‑Men, Star Wars or James Bond movie?