In an age where mainstream movies are saturated with superhero comic book films, the quality of films in the genre is inevitably going to fluctuate. For every Avengers or Winter Soldier, there will also be a Morbius or Madame Web. For a lot of characters made popular at the comic book stands, Hollywood will not seem to know how to properly adapt them while also making them accessible for general audiences. Then, you have legacy characters that you’d think would be a slam dunk, like Catwoman. Especially when you cast someone like Halle Berry in the titular role.
2003’s Catwoman would be released to a pretty unifying negative reaction from both audiences and critics. Variety reports on Halle Berry’s reflection of the infamous bomb as she speaks with Entertainment Weekly in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the film. At the time, Berry played a good sport by accepting Razzie Awards for the movie at the ceremony herself, but in this new interview, she mentions how she hated receiving the sole blame for the film’s quality. Berry stated, “I felt like it was Halle Berry’s failure, but I didn’t make it alone. All these years, I’ve absolutely carried it.”
Catwoman had earned the reputation of being one of the worst superhero movies ever made. Berry definitely saw some red flags in the script, “I always thought the idea of Catwoman saving women from a face cream felt a bit soft. All the other superheroes save the world; they don’t just save women from cracked faces. I always knew that was a soft superhero plight, but at that time in my career, I didn’t have the agency I have today or belief that I could challenge that, so I went along with it.”
The star would say that “things went smoothly [for me]” during the Catwoman production and that “it was a great shoot.” She also added, “I had the time of my life. I worked my ass off to embody a cat in so many ways, psychologically and physically. I never thought it went awry; I just thought that maybe it wouldn’t feel as big as other movies because the plot stakes aren’t as high.”