Calling all Amazons: Variety is reporting that the a “tall, brunette, athletic and exotic” actress is being sought for the role of "'Bruce Wayne's love interest" in the upcoming, as-yet-untitled "Batman-Superman" movie in pre-production at Warner Brothers. You don't have to be as wise as Hera to see that there's a strong possibility this is a sneaky way of casting the net for the first ever big screen Wonder Woman. After all, remember when Anne Hathaway was cast as "Bruce Wayne's love interest" a few years back in The Dark Knight Rises? To no one's surprise, Hathaway's role was revealed to actually be that of Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, a.k.a. "thank you, Anne for erasing the taint of Halle Berry's 'Catwoman' (in name only) from the collective consciousness of comic book fans everywhere."
As happy a possibility as it is to finally see Diana Prince and her superheroine incarnation in theaters, it does beg the question: "Why hasn't the world's first female superhero already starred in her own movie?" We're on our 8th live-action Batman with Ben Affleck (I'm reserving judgement... remember how terrible people thought Michael Keaton would be and how perfect for the role George Clooney was on paper?) and our 6th (depending on how you count it) Superman but so far Wonder Woman's only successful live-action appearance was the 1975-79 television show starring Linda Carter. David E. Kelly made an attempt at a new take on the heroine for television in 2011 (the pilot was so disappointing it went un-aired) and rumors swirled of a solo film project to the point where media front runner Megan Fox went on record as calling the character "lame." You want to talk lame, Megan? I was one of the six people who saw your performance in Passion Play and we'll just leave it at that.
As a self-professed superhero nerd let me go on record with the following: Wonder Woman is NOT lame. Any character with a mythological back-story as carefully articulated as WW's (she's the daughter of the Queen of the Amazons blessed with gifts from Mercury, Athena, Hera and Aphrodite, depending on the comic incarnation) a set of accessories that also double as weaponry (tiara boomerang, bullet deflecting bracelets, Lasso of Truth and a belt from which her Amazonian power emanates) and a pre-second-wave feminism refusal to subjugate herself to male authority, is a more than worthy subject for the screen. Another cool fact about Wonder Woman and that Golden Lasso of Truth (fashioned from the Golden Fleece): Wonder Woman's creator was William Moulton Marston, a feminist theorist, psychologist and one of the inventors of the modern polygraph test. See where I'm going with this? Wonder Woman's appeal isn't restricted to women either: three generations of men have been counted among her fans, including this blogger who continues to hold onto his mother's vintage Wonder Woman cake pan for birthdays, gluten allergy or no.