‘Wonder Woman’ Director Patty Jenkins Disappointed by Lack of Female Directing Nominees at the Oscars

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins says having no female filmmakers nominated for Best Director at the 91st Academy Awards is "a bummer."

"I feel like I'm always surprised by people being overlooked. It's too bad," Jenkins told Variety at Sundance.

"I hope that we can find a way that there can be more attention and representation and fairness in the voting and all of that."

At the 90th Oscars, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) was the sole female director nominated for the award ultimately won by Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water).

The first and last female director to win the prize was Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010.

Before Bigelow's win, Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) was nominated in the category in 2004 and was only the third woman to be up for the award, following Lina Wertmuller (1976's Seven Beauties) and Jane Campion (1993's The Piano).

In February, Adam McKay (Vice), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War), Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) and Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) will compete in the category.

Jenkins, who steered Charlize Theron to a Best Actress win in 2004 for her role in Monster, gave Warner Bros.' DC Extended Universe a major win in 2017 with the blockbuster business lassoed by the groundbreaking Wonder Woman.

The Gal Gadot-led hit was the first entry in the cinematic universe to earn a "certified fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes and took in $821 million at the worldwide box office, giving the modern era its first big screen superhero hit with a female lead.

Box office analysts say that trailblazing, to next continue with Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel in March, is the future as Hollywood learns key demographics are yearning to see themselves represented on screen.

"Female superheroes should be a consistent presence going forward. As the stunning success of Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians has taught us, representation matters," analyst Karie Bible told CNBC in September.

"Women want to see themselves reflected on screen and empowered. Why should the men get to have all the fun?"

In giving longtime feminist icon Wonder Woman her own A-list franchise — set to continue with 2020's Wonder Woman 1984, again directed by Jenkins — the filmmaker is proud her film came as a turning point for female representation on both sides of the camera.

"In the way Superman affected my life, I don't know how different it would have been if it was someone I identified with even more," Jenkins told Rolling Stone in 2017.

"I have an eight-year-old son. Watching his attitude shift from being a kid who's stuck in all the classic 'I-can't-wear- that-shirt, it's-too-girly' to needing every incarnation of the Wonder Woman doll and saying, 'I have to have her to fight in the battle, I've got to have Wonder Woman' … it's hard not to get emotional. He's going to grow up thinking that, of course, some of the women you know are going to be princesses. And some of them are going to be princesses who fight side by side with you in battle."

Wonder Woman 1984 opens June 5, 2020.