Wonder Woman has a lot riding on its success. Not only have many DC fans pinned hopes and dreams of a critically respected DC Extended Universe installment on the back of Wonder Woman, but as the first modern female-focused superhero movie and the first big-budget superhero movie to be directed by a woman, Wonder Woman is understandably under intense scrutiny, facing skepticism almost every step of the way.

The first concern voiced after the announcement of a solo Wonder Woman movie was that Gal Gadot didn’t have what it takes to carry a movie on her own, but those concerns were quickly put to bed after she became one of the most well-received aspects of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The next concern was that the influence of Zack Snyder (who has a story and producer credit for Wonder Woman) would lead to the movie being too dark and dreary, something quickly dispelled by early trailers. As the release date crawled closer, a new criticism emerged: “where’s Wonder Woman's marketing?”

After the deluge of trailers and product brand partnerships for Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, it seemed like Wonder Woman might not be getting the same treatment as her male-centric cinematic counterparts. Were Warner Bros. and DC lacking confidence in the next chapter of the DCEU? Was this some sort of sexism (intentional or otherwise) causing the studio to view a female-centric movie as inferior to the others?

There's a long list of failed female comic book movies, so it's understandable that people might start to make assumptions when they don't see Wonder Woman being marketed the same way as the other superhero movies we get on a monthly basis. But that's not the case. The truth is that Wonder Woman isn't only being marketed, it's being marketed with one of the boldest and most unique strategies in modern Hollywood.

A Bold Stance

As it turns out, Wonder Woman actually has a larger marketing budget than Suicide Squad. The reason the marketing doesn't seem the same is because... well, it isn’t. WB/DC has learned a lot about marketing these movies through the last few releases and even collected data about fans of female heroes from marketing Supergirl on CBS and CW. The timing and placement of Wonder Woman’s marketing initiatives are intended to maximize return, meaning people who are already likely to see the movie aren’t going to see as much marketing. Obviously, that’d be a waste of money.

This newer marketing strategy isn’t the only way Wonder Woman is different from what we’re used to with every other comic book movie. Forgetting concerns over the timing and abundance of advertisements and simply looking a the posters and trailers for what they are, something becomes very clear: Warner Bros. is not remotely concerned with the marketability of a female-led superhero movie.

Look up any poster for Wonder Woman and you’ll notice a trend. When the industry seems obsessed with cramming as many marketable names and faces as possible into every single movie poster, Wonder Woman does the opposite, exclusively featuring the Amazon hero front and center.

In an era when movies are constantly under attack for whitewashing, which is supposedly for box office reasons; female roles rarely get as much speaking time or marketing focus as males, again, for marketing reasons; and most movie posters have a massive collection of familiar names and faces used to convince people to see the movie, it seems like the typical approach to box office success is settled business. But then there’s Wonder Woman, and every single poster - without exception - has featured one, and only one, character: Diana.

For context, this movie has also has Chris Pine, who traditional marketing minds would consider a bigger selling point than Gal Gadot. He has the name and face of a movie star, and has already headlined several films, including a spot as figurehead for Star Trek - a billion dollar franchise. He’s not on any Wonder Woman posters. He is obviously featured in the trailers, yet even there it’s abundantly clear that he’s only a side character and this is Diana’s story.

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This Isn't Normal

Hunger Games All Character Posters

For context, this isn’t normal - especially for blockbusters. Hunger Games, the most successful female-led blockbuster franchise to date, didn’t lean on Jennifer Lawrence, the most bankable female star in 2016, like Wonder Woman is leaning on Gal Gadot. The Hunger Games movies even made alterations to the source material to give Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Gale (Liam Hemsworth), and others more prominent parts and used both of them (and others) liberally for marketing purposes.

Mad Max: Fury Road, which was lauded as a feminist story, was marketed almost entirely as a Tom Hardy driven movie, even though the majority of the story and dialogue belonged to Furiosa. It's commonplace to bring in bankable names and faces to market a movie. Even Spider-Man: Homecoming, while it has a male lead - just not one everyone knows - brought in Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man/Tony Stark to help sell the movie.

Iron Man and Spider-man from Homecoming

While the DCEU isn’t about to stop making money anytime soon and its staunch supports aren’t about to abandon ship, there’s still a sense of hope that Wonder Woman will finally be the film to be certified fresh by Rotten Tomatoes, however arbitrary that might be. There’s no doubt there are similar hopes at WB and DC.

The fact of the matter is Warner Bros. is going to be the first studio to get a modern female superhero movie to the big screen, and there’s a lot more at play here than with a normal superhero movie. Whether WB is trying to make a statement with its marketing or not isn’t relevant. The very decision to make this movie as a part of the DCEU says female characters can, and should, be featured just as prominently as male characters. If that is true, then it needs to be crystal clear that Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman that sold this movie, not some other famous face they added to carry it at the box office.

But those long-held beliefs about how blockbusters should be marketed are long held for a reason, right? By putting the marketing burden of this movie on the shoulders of a relatively unknown female instead of following the traditionally smart method of bolstering marketing and story with male characters, is WB limiting Wonder Woman’s ultimate box office potential?

Box Office Impact

Many people refer to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as a box office letdown, and while they definitely didn’t reach their ultimate potential, both were profitable and still made a sizeable chunk overall. Suicide Squad, on the other hand, was a runaway financial success. All three of these movies followed the standard marketing process, throwing out all the names and faces in the same tsunami of posters and TV spots people expect from comic book movies.

Despite not following the same model, Wonder Woman was initially projected to open at $83 million. That would be enough to put it at the fifth highest opening so far for 2017, over $20 million ahead of Kong: Skull Island, and a few million shy of Logan, which, while R-rated, had rave reviews and was the culmination of Hugh Jackman’s 17-year tenure as the character. Seeing similar numbers for Wonder Woman’s first cinematic outing ever is nothing to turn your nose up at, especially considering Wonder Woman’s budget of 100 million was significantly less than everything else in the top 5, other than Logan’s barely smaller budget of $97 million.

As Wonder Woman's marketing has ramped up, including a rousing final trailer, some opening weekend projections are now running as high as $105-115 million. For a little additional context, an opening of $100 million or more would be bigger than any non-sequel non-Avengers MCU movie, a major coup for the DCEU's fourth outing. This means that not only is Wonder Woman’s marketing working, but with Gal Gadot as the sole face of this film, she’s proving that audiences are craving a female superhero; she’s proving that a female-led, female-directed comic book movies aren't too risky; and she’s proving that audiences don’t need popular male leads to sell female characters.

We won’t know until it’s all said and done, but as things stand now, Wonder Woman is on the verge of being one of the higher grossing movies of the year, with a lower-than-average blockbuster budget, meaning it will also be one of the most profitable movies of the year, and the only person in the spotlight will be a relative newcomer, Gal Gadot, as the most iconic female superhero of all time: Wonder Woman.

Update: Since this article was published, a new Wonder Woman poster has been released featuring Chris Pine's Steve Trevor in the background. While this is the first poster to not exclusively feature Diana, she is still the most prominent figure in the image. So, while it marks a slight detour from the approach of exclusively featuring Wonder Woman, her role in marketing still hasn't been diminished in any way.

NEXT: Who Is The Real Villain Of Wonder Woman?

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