Wonder Woman breaks opening weekend records for a female-directed film

Warner Bros/DC’s ‘Wonder Woman’ is breaking all kinds of new ground.

On top of being the first superhero movie of the decade fronted by a female character, ‘Wonder Woman’ has also attracted the most positive critical reaction of any DC Extended Universe movie to date (rated 94% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing).

Whether it will also wind up one of DC’s biggest money-makers remains to be seen – but it has already broken the US record for opening weekend takings of a film from a female director.

Deadline report that, as of Saturday 3 June, the film from director Patty Jenkins has taken $97.1 million (approx ￡75.3 million) at the US box office, following its opening on Thursday 1 June.

This does not include international weekend takings, final figures for which are not yet available, although Box Office Mojo lists ‘Wonder Woman’s international box office haul as $47.1 million (approx ￡36.4 million) as of Friday.

This beats the US previous record for opening weekend takings of a female-directed film, held by ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ Director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film made $85 million in the US in its first three days. It remains to be seen whether ‘Wonder Woman’ can also smash ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’s international opening weekend haul of $157 million.

Either way, this is a good bit more than ‘Wonder Woman’ was predicted to make at this time, initial projections having indicated it would open to the tune of $65 million in the US.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also buries the box office haul of Patty Jenkins’ first film, 2003 Oscar-winner ‘Monster,’ which made just over $60 million worldwide.

All this having been said, ‘Wonder Woman’ doesn’t look to come close to having one of the biggest openings of 2017. At present, that honour goes to ‘Fast & Furious 8,’ which made an eye-watering $541.9 million worldwide on its first weekend.

To date, the highest grossing film from a female director is Disney’s ‘Frozen,’ co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, which made $1.276 billion at the global box office.

‘Wonder Woman’ is in cinemas now.

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