No more female leads in movies? And no more Wonder Woman?

There will be no more movies where the main character is a woman, at least in the land of Warner Brothers, where the president of production has allegedly made a decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." This comes from Deadline Hollywood writer Nikki Finke, who claims she heard the news from three different producers.

After films like The Brave One, starring big box office draw Jodie Foster, and The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman, failed to perform, women are out as leads. This has some DC fans worried that the long awaited comic book movie Wonder Woman may never make it to the big screen, unless Brad Pitt is cast as the title character.

Movies starring women have rarely done as well as men, but there of course have been notable exceptions (although those exceptions are generally more critical than financial in nature). Of course, it is quite foolish to establish a precedent for all future movies, as just because there have been a few financial flops this year doesn't mean that movies starring women on their own are guaranteed failures. At the very least, Warner Brothers should try to make high quality films on lower budgets; if movies starring women are doing as well, then cut costs and get the critics behind you.

The Brave One received mixed critical reviews (though I and everyone I know liked it), and The Invasion was a disaster from the beginning with no fault to Kidman (the movie was delayed over a year, the instant kiss of death, and received no marketing from Warner Brothers whatsoever). Other 2007 films starring females such as Lucky You (Drew Barrymore) did bad because they looked bad.

Bottom line is that Warner Brothers should worry more about making good movies and less about who is starring in them.

Following the poor performance of the Jodie Foster-starring The Brave One and the Nicole Kidman vehicle The Invasion, Warner Bros. President of production has made the decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead," writes Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood.

Finke writes: 'This comes to me from three different producers, so I know it's real.'

With the policy now being that every film produced by Warner Bros. must have a male lead, the future of a Wonder Woman movie looks grim indeed. While it cannot be argued that the woman-starring Elektra and Catwoman both left much to be desired, it seems utterly foolish to think that Warner Bros. would pass on making a long in-development film about one of DC Comic's most iconic characters due to this new policy.