Chris Pine Is Joining The Superhero Game

Whenever I hear there's new Wonder Woman news, I poke my head out of the ground like a startled gopher. The upcoming DC Wonder Woman film is the culmination of so many dreams of mine that, at this point, I spend my time in a near constant state of reaching out my palm and begging Warner Bros. to give me the movie already. Gal Gadot is starring as Wonder Woman in her own solo film coming after she appears as the heroine in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but now there could be even more exciting casting news on the horizon. According to Variety, Chris Pine is in talks to join the Wonder Woman cast as Steve Trevor, Wonder Woman's canon love interest.

Steve Trevor is an officer in the US Army who meets Wonder Woman aka Diana after his plane crashes on her hometown of Paradise Island. She nurses him back to health, they fall in love, and she follows him back to the US where she will eventually become both Wonder Woman and "Diana Prince," Trevor's co-worker. Pine is best known at the moment for appealing to a different kind of nerd with his turn as Captain Kirk in the recent Star Trek films, but it's not like there isn't a place for talented men named Chris in the superhero genre right now.

Marvel currently has a monopoly on them, boasting Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), and Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) in their roster of superheroes. Not that these three Chrises weren't experiencing some success before they donned a costume and joined a franchise, but Marvel elevated them to superstardom and gave us the Chris Trifecta that so many of us fawn over to this day. Pine would be the first Chris that DC would be hiring for a major role in the Justice League franchise, but, even with all jokes aside, the fact that he's allegedly being looked at as a love interest rather than as a main hero is already a step up from what Marvel is doing.

It's not that I think that Pine's talents should be wasted on only appearing in movies starring Wonder Woman — but why should that even enter the equation? No one complains that Black Widow's talents are being wasted by only appearing in films starring other Avengers and, while people are always happy to see more of Pepper Potts or Peggy Carter, there has yet to be a strong push for solo movies for these ladies. (Thankfully, Peggy managed to cheat by getting her own television show that, despite ratings that weren't as promising as I had hoped, has been renewed for a second season.) I'm happy that DC is giving Pine the opportunity to come on board, but I'm even more glad that the role in question is a supporting role to Wonder Woman's leading lady.

Because we need more movies like that. And, quite honestly, I am in support of anything that makes it more likely that people will buy a ticket and park themselves in the theaters to see Wonder Woman. Pine's name certainly carries more cache than Gadot's does at this point, at least in terms of level of comparative fame, and, if it's true that Warner Bros. is circling Pine, then that means that fans of Pine (and, perhaps, fans of the new Star Trek films) might come and watch Wonder Woman — if only to see Pine's interpretation of Steve Trevor. Once you get the doubters in the theater to begin with, then Warner Bros. and DC can blow them away with a strong story that makes Wonder Woman the shining hero she has always deserved to be.

We've had so many Superman movies, television shows, and cartoons in the past. We've had so many Batman movies, television shows, and cartoons in the past. The media for one hero or the other overwhelms the amount of movies, television shows, and cartoons that have been made about Wonder Woman, that are starring Wonder Woman. I said it before when Agent Carter was about to premiere, but now I'll say it again: we need this Wonder Woman movie to do well, so we can finally prove to big movie studios that female superheroes are marketable. That's a lot of pressure to put on one film, but, hey. The pressure wouldn't be so high if there were more than two of them coming up between Marvel and DC.

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