Re: meerkat8
I don't see how you could say Rachael Dawes was 'dumb' and suggest a goofy
cartoon character (Harley Quinn) to be added in the setting of Nolan's Batman films.
She'd work in Schumacher's Batman films. I'm not saying Rachael was terribly interesting, but although she is not in the Batman mythos but she served a purpose in Batman Begins, and the tie in between The Dark Knight. I just wish he would of cast a better actress, and one that had chemistry with Christian Bale and didn't look half his age.

I just wanted to note that Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill was NOT a superhero. Who did she save in that film? She sought out for revenge, she didn't help anyone. Lastly, you don't have to cast an 'actual Greek woman' to play Elektra. What does it matter? Like the audience is really going to notice or care.

Unfortunately, Warners owns rights to DC characters and its executives have made no secret of their disdain for female-oriented superhero films. So while a proposed "Doom Patrol" project never got off the ground, DreamWorks essentially copied the concept — freakish superheroes (including a giant woman) save the world. When "Monsters Vs. Aliens" becomes a big hit this spring, perhaps Warners will see the folly of its ways.

And hey, sidekick/love interest characters can be as good as anything else if done right. Supergirl is still cool when Superman isn't around(well, arguably, she's cooler). I'd see a Supergirl reboot…

Otherwise I mostly agree. I don't see why these guys have sucha hard time of it.

Love,
Grandma

Shon

The problem is picking women who are more concerned with their appearance but lets be fair – that's exactly what women are now. Eye candy. So you're looking for a woman who knows how to play a complex, strong, smart, beautiful, sexy, adventurous and perfectly lovable character nowadays? None of them think they're like that so how can they play it? (I know it's called acting but what part of 'you're pretty and thin' makes them actresses?)

Even the ones that you deem good are good because the bar has been severely lowered.

Find the talent and that's half the battle.

I've never sounded more like a feminist in my life. Sorry.

Sarah: But there WAS a Buffy movie (shot and set before the series).

«our friend Batman’s gonna need a new love interest»
Really? Let's spell it out: heterosexual doomed love-interest. Sounds like a waste of time to me.
I'd certainly appreciate some female characters though. I think I'd just appreciate it even more if being sexually available wouldn't be a prerequisite for being relevant.

2. Do another Electra movie but have Frank Miller (yes, I know about "The Spirit", but Miller is less likely to fuck up HIS OWN CHARACTER) and Robert Rodriguez direct it and have an actual Greek woman play Electra. Watch the bucks roll in.

I just feel like he dives into some of this complicated male friendships and antagonisms but freezes up elsewhere and goes for cliche. Or maybe it's that he had to create a bland female love interest on his own (rather than, say, diving into the interesting Batman/Catwoman relationship in the comics) instead of having a complex relationships from the comics to spin off. I admit I lean more towards the first idea. I suspect Bruce/Selina in his hands might not be half as complex as he saw Bruce/Harvey Dent.

Mark

But that's my complaint, it's just that there's still this stubborn desire by anyone who handles batman to force him into a relationship. We are well over 10 Batman feature films and some how each film still stumbles on how to portray a relationship with a work-a-holic who's devoted to his promise he made when he was 8 years old. If they want to really portray Catwoman, they need to really take a cue from the current comics and see why she's so successful as an on-going character then just in one movie's take.

What I meant was that people now expect or are more likely to accept a darker hero type like the Faith character than a buffy like character.
Especially in a movie within the DC or Marvel universes.
The X-men and the Spiderman franchises allready dealt with darker, negative things in life and the Batman franchise really set the tone.

That's one of the reasons Superman Returns failed. (yes there where many more reasons I know)
The public now craves tormented souls that can be hurt instead of indestructable beings with a little heartache.

So you need the right character which I'm sure can be found or (re-)created but again I ask: who can pull it off?

This is one movie I would want to be camp beyond belief. I mean like, directed by John Waters or Bryan Fuller levels of camp.

Rachel Dawes was dumb. I'd love to see them tie up The Joker's character by introducing a feisty Harley Quinn (and I can see Kristen Bell doing that role justice) — and bringing in Rebecca Romijn or Parker Posey as Catwoman makes sense too. They can preserve the Barbie doll bodies but, you know, make characters smart too. I mean the superheroes are typically Ken dolls themselves, more or less; they just get better lines.

GET TO IT, HOLLYWOOD.

Um, I think you should see My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

An ex-superheroine who's gone into private investigating, a very non-typical superheroine who gave up the spandex and etc.
Or something steampunk? Mina Harker was a very interesting (lead) character in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen until that horrible movie came out with her turning into bats and things.

You know, forget looking for a movie with a multi-dimensional superheroine. How about movies with just a regular woman character? There's definitely not enough of those. American movies, with some exceptions, are just terrible at getting these right. And it seems if the woman is younger, or good looking — the chances of her getting a good, developed character and compelling conflicts decline rapidly, as if they took one look at her and figured her boobs could just carry the story…

You know "The Rule" from Alison Bechdel's DTWOF comic? One character says she doesn't see movies unless it has at least 2 women in it, who talk to each other about something besides a man. The last movie she saw was Alien — where they talked about the monster

And after finally seeing the wonderfully campy Planet Terror, I've also got high hopes for Robert Rodriguez/Rose McGowan Red Sonia I hear is in production. I think this could be great if allowed to be as gorey and violent as it should be.

I also think it'd be a great idea for the Batman people to totally switch tracks and do the 3rd movie as a tightly written romance/crime caper with Catwoman as the antagonist. Why try to out-dark The Dark Knight? A movie starring Catwoman could outsmart it.

http://dangerman-1973.deviantart.com/gallery/

But gender dictates a different playing fields in our culture when it comes to how one looks.

Women's appearance is valued so much more in our mainstream culture that a girl can grow up believing how she looks is more important than who she is.

So if this is the (sad) case, what does she look for her when relating to a female superhero?

@rattler76: IMO, I think Sarah Michelle Gellar was pretty successful in her portrayal of Buffy. Buffy wasn't supposed to be Faith anyway, she WAS supposed to have many "valley girl" characteristics. So I'm guessing your problem was really with the character, not the actress herself.

With superhero's becomes camp so easily.
X-men would've been very camp if they hadn't changed the outfits so that's something they can fix.

Casting however is much more difficult
Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton are still some of the very few who pulled it off.
Eliza Dushku was much more believable as tough girl than Sarah Michelle Gellar ever could have been.
Lucy Lawless might've pulled it off somewhat if the show (Xena) itself wasn't so camp allready.
Peta Wilson in La Femme Nikita was quite good and Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil wasn't to bad allthough still a bit flat characterwise (but that wasn't her fault).

So forget about directors for a second, which actresses kan actually play a believable strong woman?