Catwoman is arguably one of DC Comics’s most well-known characters. She’s a crafty burglar in Gotham City, best known for her skin-tight suit and bullwhip. Though technically a villain, she’s also a love interest of Batman and is often portrayed as an antihero. Outside of the comics, she’s been portrayed by some iconic and amazing actresses. Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Anne Hathaway come to mind, but it’s probably Halle Berry’s amazingly awful Catwoman film from 2004 that made the biggest name for the character in recent years. The film was destroyed by both critics and audiences, but with the character set to appear again in 2022’s The Batman, there might be an opportunity for Warner Bros. to make another, better, Catwoman movie.
2004’s Catwoman, directed by Pitof, is often regarded as one of the worst films of all time. Berry’s performance of the character is what’s most highly criticized, but it really was a weird premise for the film to begin with. It seemingly had nothing to do with the DC universe, there was no mention of Batman, and the origin story for the character was pretty wild. Roger Ebert famously said that it abandoned the character entirely and instead became a film based on showcasing Halle Berry’s sex appeal, and the film swept that year’s Razzies.
Since the tragedy of the solo Catwoman film, the idea hasn’t really been brought up or suggested again. It wasn’t all that long ago, so any attempt at it before now probably would have just instantly been compared to the 2004 version, especially if they were both done by Warner Bros. The character did appear in Christoper Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, in its final installment The Dark Knight Rises. She was portrayed by Anne Hathaway and was a pretty classic and traditional version of the character. Though it’s not considered a favorite version of the character, she received pretty favorable reviews. The real chance for Warner Bros. to make a comeback with next year’s The Batman, where she will be played by Zoë Kravitz.
Even though it hasn’t come out yet, it only just finished production after several delays, The Batman is incredibly hyped and already very highly anticipated. Its cast is stacked. Besides Kravitz as Selina Kyle, Bruce Wayne will be played by Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano is playing the Riddler, and Colin Farrell is slated as Penguin. It’s also marketed as a very dark and serious take on the characters as opposed to the more comic book style takes of superheroes in the MCU and the DCEU. This approach has worked very well for DC Comics, especially the Batman character, as shown by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, as well as Todd Phillips’s Joker, both of which earned Oscar nominations.
With so many of these classic characters being in The Batman, fans are already wondering if this is the start of a universe or extension of the franchise. And with its dark and broody tone, people are also wondering if that’ll be villain-based. Any films focusing on these villains could be successful, but Catwoman probably has the most potential as she’s the most recognizable character. Given the history of a massively failed Catwoman movie though, there might be some hesitation to do that. There shouldn’t be.
Another Catwoman movie starring Zoë Kravitz has huge potential to be very successful because of what current society wants, and what fans of superhero films are looking for. 2004’s Catwoman was torn apart because, as previously mentioned, it strayed way too far from the real origin and meaning of the character and focused far too much on the sex appeal of Halle Berry. This was of course on top of bad writing and acting. A new Catwoman film has the opportunity to take it in a completely different direction, and provide a real character that people can relate to and identify with.
What fans are looking for right now is representation. The MCU’s Black Panther and the DCEU’s Wonder Woman set the tone for this, because they provided the Black population and women respectively a chance at a strong and “realistic” representation. Feeling represented in the media has been proven to have strong mental health benefits, adding to self-confidence and self-assuredness. If there’s something that the superhero genre most gets criticized for, it’s a lack of diversity and a lack of care taken with women and Black characters.
A new Catwoman film that’s very grounded in being more realistic, as The Batman seems to be going for, could provide such a great story that so much of the population might really resonate with. The fact that she’s kind of morally grey and obviously flawed is even more of an argument for that because women don’t generally actually identify with the characters that are overpowered and too good. That angle, as seen in the MCU’s Captain Marvel can come off as kind of patronizing.
The Catwoman that the world got in 2004’s version just wasn’t a real version of the character. It was a bizarre and bad iteration that will always stand out as a flop. Not doing too much with the character since then is understandable, but introducing her in a new film is an opportunity for Warner Bros. to really redeem themselves. Not only would it be a benefit to them, but it could be a benefit to a lot of people who look up to the superheroes seen in movies and don’t see themselves represented.
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