A director with a bold and original visual imagination, Taymor would bring a striking look and design to Wonder Woman. Both in directing operas and large scale Broadway shows and feature films, Taymor has demonstrated an ability to take existing iconic stories and characters and make them come alive in creative and stylish ways. Kenneth Branagh was hired to direct Thor on the basis of parallels perceived between Marvel's hero and the director's Shakespeare films. The same could be said for Taymor's work with Shakespeare and the classical fantasy elements of Wonder Woman. Taymor's last film, a gender-swapped take on The Tempest, was after all set on a female ruled fantastical island. She may not have made a blockbusting film in the past (although Frida earned a healthy $56 million on a $12 million budget), but when it comes to theatre she was behind a financial hit far beyond any feature film. Taymor's stage production of The Lion King, for which she became the first woman to receive a Tony award for directing a musical, has made over $6 billion (or six times the gross of The Dark Knight, the biggest DC movie thus far). The stage is also the home of Taymor's previous superhero work, as the original director-writer-designer of Marvel's Spider-Man musical Turn Off the Dark. A highly troubled production, admittedly, and one from which Taymor eventually parted company, but this most expensive Broadway show at all was largely pushed to fruition through her vision, suggesting a director more than capable of managing a similar thing with one of DC's icons.
