Last month Warner Bros. announced that they were seeking a female director for the upcoming Wonder Woman project. Geeks everywhere began dream-casting this potential director, and Lexi Alexander‘s name came up on a lot of these lists. Alexander has six director credits on IMDB, the best known of which is Punisher: War Zone—a 2008 adaptation of Marvel’s The Punisher’s conflict with the villain Jigsaw. However, Alexander has no intention of seeking out a position at Wonder Woman’s helm.
As she told Ellen Killoran of Forbes, “I don’t see at this point why anyone would say yes [to directing the film]. There is huge pressure . . . If [a female director] does fail, then all of a sudden it’s ‘all women suck at directing.'”
Alexander also accused other women in her industry of not being brave and “throwing [her] under the train” because they don’t speak up about gender discrimination in the movie industry. Punisher suffered a huge budget cut and she told Killoran that she “believes the studio’s shareholders were spooked that the movie was given to a female director.”
Although it is obviously an enormous weight to be a sought-after female director for the first major name female superhero movie, it is a job someone must fill. Many fans thought Alexander would be a great choice given that Punisher has been one of the only comic book movies directed by a woman over the last few years. According to Killoran, “Alexander said that she has has not been approached by the studio, and has discouraged her managers from throwing her hat in the ring.”
Fans will have to wait and see what director will accept the challenge of Wonder Woman and if Mark Hughes’s Twitter prediction was correct.
Do it seems WB has apparently made an offer to a director to helm Wonder Woman. Bigelow, Leder, or MacLaren?
— Mark Hughes (@markhughesfilms) November 8, 2014
I wish she would take it on, because I’m sure she’d rock it. But I definitely see where’s she’s coming from and understand the weight of what she’d be taking on. I wouldn’t want to be under that kind of pressure either, even if I was confident in my abilities. Bummer! I’m stoked to see who will accept the project, though.