Halle Berry Wants to Remake ‘Catwoman’ as Director: ‘Make It More Inclusive of Men and Women’
Zack Sharf
Halle Berry has thrown her name out there for consideration if Hollywood ever again attempts to bring a Catwoman movie to the big screen. Berry was the star of the infamous 2004 “Catwoman” movie, and she’d love to get the chance to course correct the movie from behind the camera. The Oscar winner is now officially a feature film director after helming “Bruised,” her directorial debut that world premiered at AFI FEST.
“I would love to direct ‘Catwoman,'” Berry recently told “Jake’s Takes” (via Total Film). “If I can get ahold of that now, knowing what I know, having had this experience [on ‘Bruised’], and reimagine that world the way I reimagined this story. ‘Bruised’ was written for a white Irish Catholic 25-year-old girl, and I got to reimagine it. I wish I could go back and reimagine Catwoman and redo that. Have a redo on that, now knowing what I know [about directing].”
“I would have Catwoman saving the world like most male superheroes do, and not just saving women from their faces cracking off,” Barry continued, referencing the plot of 2004’s “Catwoman” that pitted the eponymous hero against a corrupt beauty cosmetics company. “I would make the stakes a lot higher, and I think make it more inclusive of both men and women.”
“Catwoman” was a box office bomb and is routinely cited by film critics as one of the worst comic book movies ever made. Berry has often spoken about her criticisms of “Catwoman” and why she decided to take on the part. In the years following her Oscar win for “Monster’s Ball,” Berry was not getting the kind of offers she expected and “Catwoman” was one of her only chances to play the lead in a major studio tentpole. While Berry got a supporting turn in the Bond film “Die Another Day,” the studio refused to move forward on a standalone spinoff around her character, Jinx. Thus Berry was not in a position to turn down “Catwoman” if she intended to lead a Hollywood blockbuster and bring in a payday.
“It’s like, okay, [‘Catwoman’ is] a film I can’t say I’m totally in love with, but this isn’t a hobby,” Berry told Entertainment Weekly in August. “It’s how I take care of my children. But I try to keep that sense of wonder and stay curious. Because being a Black woman, I haven’t always had parts that I absolutely love.”
Berry went on to note that “Catwoman” was “one of the biggest paydays of my whole life, which, there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t want to feel like, ‘Oh, I can only do award-worthy stuff.’ What is an award-worthy performance?”
In a 2020 interview with Variety, Berry said of her choice to join the “Catwoman” movie: “People said to me, ‘You can’t do that. You’ve just won the Oscar.’ Because I didn’t do Jinx, I thought, ‘This is a great chance for a woman of color to be a superhero. Why wouldn’t I try this?'”
The character of Catwoman might soon be getting her own film and TV series. Zoe Kravitz steps into the role opposite Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne in the upcoming “The Batman.”
