I don't think Buge is actually arguing that. He just meant that that was what the executive bullshit line was.
yes, this.
Well, sure. But this tends to strongly suggest that they made their judgement completely independently of any objective data.
Not that that's a surprise, I guess. But on the other hand, up until now I found it entirely plausible that Wonder Woman had performed poorly. I thought it was a middling entry, and I didn't expect these things would be selling well outside of the typical fanboy demographics -- and Wonder Woman's been a modest seller as a comic book for decades.
Those are all perfectly reasonable hypotheses. But now I smell a strong scent of confirmation bias on them. Warner saw what they expected to see instead of what was actually there. Which takes it from being merely a disappointing corporate decision to being straight-up bad business.
Now, when a property doesn't sell, there's a knee-jerk "People don't want to see this property" response to it. The response to Superman 4 kept Superman out of theaters for the better part of two decades, and the response to Superman Returns prompted another lengthy break followed by a reboot. Which comes on the heels of the popular Batman reboot that happened nearly a decade after Batman and Robin made Warner decide people weren't interested in Batman anymore.
Green Lantern's looking at the same problem, which is a real pity because there could be a legitimately great Green Lantern movie. (And I really don't think the one we got was as bad as everybody says, but it was pretty bland and unfocused.)
Wonder Woman...well, she's very popular as an icon but hasn't had a successful mainstream property since the 1970's. (Which actually sounds a bit like the Hulk, who had two movies with his name in the title that weren't particularly well-received and then became a breakout character in an ensemble piece, which I think is also exactly what Warner has in mind for WW.)
I don't think the problem is that there's nobody out there who knows how to make her appealing to a mass-market audience -- I think the problem is that nobody with a corner office at Warner knows a good idea when they hear it.
I guess it's possible a Whedon-helmed Wonder Woman movie could have flopped. (Or at least "flopped", like Superman Returns and Green Lantern, which both made money.) But I bet it would have been good, and at least gotten people interested in the character as more than a corporate logo.
