The Warner Bros Woman Haters Club
WB exec Jeff Robinov isn’t too keen on making movies with women in the lead.
originating article for this story it may just be Chinese whispers, but I'll assume it's genuine for the purposes of this article. The studios president of production Jeff Robinov (the little bald guy on the right) has apparently issued a very bizarre mandate:
We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead.The reason for this is apparently down to the poor box office performances of Jodie Fosters THE BRAVE ONE and Nicole Kidmans THE INVASION. If thats the case then its a little baffling, can you really blame a female lead for the failure of those movies? THE BRAVE ONE was yet another revenge thriller - a genre that has been done to death - and making the protagonist a woman is also nothing new (seen KILL BILL, Mr Robinov?). THE INVASION had severe production problems and went through multiple re-shoots and directors, plus isnt it the second or third remake of this particular idea? The studio has been successful with movies like 300 (bewilderingly a movie that was both macho and extremely gay) and less so with more sensitive, flimsy action films like SUPERMAN RETURNS. Plus, four quadrant action movies with female leads have bombed though I'd attribute the failure of CATWOMAN, AEON FLUX and ELEKTRA to the fact they all had terrible scripts and clueless directors. Robinovs thinking is closed minded, lacking in ambition, sexist and one of the reasons why we get so many pointless remakes and sequels. Id point him to KILL BILL and Jennifer Garners ALIAS to show him that original, high concept ideas with female leads can work. Both those properties were propped up guys with a modicum of talent in Quentin Tarantino and JJ Abrams whereas the two movies Robinov sights as failures were Joel Silver quickies. Interestingly, Jessica Biel recently turned down the role of Wonder Woman in the JUSTICE LEAGUE movie, perhaps one of her reasons was because the studio wouldnt guarantee that theyve give her a spin-off feature. On this evidence I dont think well ever get a WONDER WOMAN movie while Robinov is running Warner Bros. source deadline hollywood daily