Olivia Wilde is ready to change Marvel. She tells Evan Ross Katz on his podcast Shut Up Evan that women are changing up how superheroes are portrayed and perceived: “Look, we are seeing this incredible influx of female directors and storytellers getting to take hold of this genre, of the superhero space, and infuse it with their own perspective. So, not only do I get to tell this story as a director, but I get to develop this story, and that was what made it so incredible for me.”
The Booksmart director was recruited by Sony to develop a currently untitled Marvel project, rumored to be a Spider-Woman film. She remained mum on the details, but did say: “I'm just honored to be amongst this wave of women who are showing up and saying 'we are not only going to step in and try and tell this story like men do, we're actually going to reframe the stories themselves.’ And the industry is, as far as I can tell, really supportive of that. There is a sea change and it's because of these decades of trailblazers who demanded this over and over and over again and it's finally broken through and I'm very fortunate to be there with it.”
Other major female directors of superhero films: Cathy Yan‘s Birds of Prey, Patty Jenkins‘ Wonder Woman 1984, Chloé Zhao‘s The Eternals, Cate Shortland‘s Black Widow.