Lexi Alexander Would Not Direct ‘Wonder Woman’ — Here’s Why

Lexi Alexander would reject a role directing the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, even if executives offered. Seems like an odd thing to say for the feminist director of Punisher: War Zone, but she has a good reason.

According to Screen Rant, when Warner Bros first announced the Wonder Woman movie, they were looking for a woman to direct it. Of all the prominent female directors out there, Lexi Alexander stood out for her previously work on Punisher: War Zone, essentially she knew her way around a superhero movie. But the studio never made an official offer, and perhaps it’s best they didn’t, because Alexander would want no part of it.

It’s not out of some internal fight or a hatred of Wonder Woman. No, Lexi would reject the director’s chair for one reason: pressure, as she explained to Fast Company.

“Imagine the weight on my shoulders. How many male superhero movies fail? So now, we finally get Wonder Woman with a female director, imagine if it fails. And you have no control over marketing, over budget. So without any control, you carry the f**king weight of gender equality for both characters and women directors. No way.”

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Christopher Nolan, director of Inception and more recently Interstellar, had similar reservations. The director said he would never touch Star Wars the way J.J. Abrams is doing, not with an army of 40-something rabid fans watching and waiting. Of course, Nolan isn’t worried about making a bad name for male directors.

Luckily for the German-born Lexi Alexander, it sounds like she won’t have to confront an awkward rejection. The studios have not approached her with an offer, and she’s made sure her managers don’t put her name out there. Plus, Alexander told Forbes that she thinks another female director has already reached out to Warner Bros.

“If she says yes, everybody will be very happy, including me. Still, I don’t see at this point why anyone would say yes. There is huge pressure… If [a female director] does fail, then all of a sudden it’s ‘all women suck at directing.'”

Still, Lexi worries about whoever Wonder Woman director is, assuming that it will be a woman. Lexi intends to start a blog asking for transparency on the production process, that way, if the film fails, the female director won’t bear all the blame. Alexander believes that the careful documentation would show the additional challenges women directors face, thus making it harder to fault the unnamed Wonder Woman director in the future.

The world of female directors is still a small one. There are still few household names among woman directors. Lexi Alexander may be focused on the negative side of directing Wonder Woman, but it might just as well be an opportunity to get a deserving director in the spotlight.

The Wonder Woman movie is slated for some time in 2017.

[Image Credit: Zack Snyder/Twitter]