Director Patty Jenkins is having quite the year.
First, she gets immortalized as her very own Barbie doll for International Women’s Day. “I am someone who is lucky enough to make the films I want to make,” Jenkins said at the time. “But the honor of having a Barbie that looks like me and is doing what I do touches and delights the girl and child in me to the core. It celebrates all sides of me and my hopes for myself and others, in a very special way.”
Now, news is swirling about the well-deserved raise she’s receiving for her work on the Wonder Woman sequel which is due to hit theaters in 2019. A new Variety story reports that Jenkins will make $9 million for her writing and directing roles on the new film. The first Wonder Woman movie grossed over $400 million domestically and The Hollywood Reporter says that she was paid around $1 million (though there may have been additional bonuses based on the film’s success.)
Hopefully, Jenkins’ salary is the beginning of a trend of equal pay for female directors—something she has previously said she was acutely aware of during the negotiation process. ‘You’re of course aware of the money,” Jenkins told Variety last October. “But I’ve never been more aware of a duty than I was in this deal. I was extremely aware that I had to make sure I was being paid what the male equivalent would be.” She continued, “Women who have not been in a system that allows them to build up the same level of pay as men are not able to be paid the same as men forever if that’s the way it continues. You have to ask for it to happen, and you have to ask when you’re the appropriate person.”