Patty Jenkins has broken box office records for a female director after Wonder Woman had a strong opening weekend in cinemas.

The Warner Bros/DC film, which stars Gal Gadot, earned a global opening weekend total of $223m (£173m), with $100.5m of that figure coming from the US. It means that Jenkins now holds the record for the biggest US opening by a female director, beating the previous $85.2m total set by Fifty Shades of Grey’s Sam Taylor-Johnson.

While Wonder Woman did not quite reach the $242m total reached by Fifty Shades of Grey at the global box office, it nevertheless performed well in international markets. It debuted at number one in many countries, including China, where its $38m total made it the fourth largest opening of all time at the country’s box office. In the UK, the film took a total of £5.82m.

Wonder Woman’s weekend earnings comfortably puts it ahead of the lifetime grosses of previous female-fronted superhero movies, including 2004’s Catwoman, which grossed $82m worldwide, and 2005’s Elektra, which managed $57m. The film also performed better at the global box office than several other successful superhero films, including both instalments of Guardians of the Galaxy and the first two Iron Man and Captain America movies.

Unusually for a superhero film, the majority of Wonder Woman’s audience was female. According to the Hollywood Reporter, women accounted for 52% of its audience, in a genre that, on average, is 60% male.

Wonder Woman has proved popular with audiences and critics. The film has received an A rating from the audience survey firm CinemaScore, and currently holds a 93% rating on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. One of the few dissenting reviews came from the Guardian’s Steve Rose, who criticised the film for its “over-earnestness, bludgeoning special effects, and a messy, often wildly implausible plot”.