8 Fictional Movie Villains Inspired By Real People

5. Ludendorff (Wonder Woman) - Erich Ludendorff

Ludendorff Danny Huston Wonder Woman Erich Ludendorff
Warner Bros/Alexander Binder (via WikiMedia Commons

Wonder Woman was by far the most successful DCEU movie to date, in large part due to its more grounded central conflict (videogame boss battle notwithstanding).

At its heart, it's a war movie about a beacon of hope leading the charge against an evil German threat, a battle with deep roots in real-world history - roots that go much, much deeper than you might have thought.

This is because one of Wonder Woman's villains, Erich Ludendorff (played by Danny Huston), was actually inspired by a real-life man of the same name, who was the spearhead of Germany's World War I effort.

Real-world Ludendorff had much success during the war, much like the movie's fictionalized version of him: both men were obsessed with winning and obsessed with war, but both were ultimately foiled. In the movie, the character was killed by Wonder Woman, and in reality, Ludendorff was forced out of his position after a failed offensive strike in 1918.

Wonder Woman is the first time a version of Ludendorff has appeared in a major motion picture, and as he was a symbol of war, he was the perfect villain for Wonder Woman - a symbol of peace - to go up against.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!