The future of the Wonder Woman film franchise is in serious trouble. A recent report revealed that Warner Bros. had canceled Wonder Woman 3 in its current form after rejecting a pitch by Patty Jenkins. While it was originally believed this was due to the film not fitting new DC Films co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran’s vision for the franchise, it was later confirmed the pitch was rejected by Warner Bros. executives. While Patty Jenkins was given the option to come up with a new pitch, the director walked away from the third film, and now the status of Wonder Woman 3 is up in the air.
The news certainly comes as a shock to many. Wonder Woman was the first film in the now-dubbed DCU that was seen as a critical and commercial success, and much of the credit was given to director Patty Jenkins. Jenkins was given more creative control on the highly anticipated sequel, 2020’s Wonder Woman 1984, which faced multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was the first film released by Warner Bros. as part of their 2021 day and date release for theaters and HBO Max.
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Wonder Woman 1984 received a more negative reaction from critics and audiences. Jenkins had envisioned Wonder Woman as a trilogy, and it appears audiences will never get to see her third film, which is a shame. Jenkins’ two previous Wonder Woman films showed not only her strengths as a director but also how she was able to imagine the character in two tonally different films but still feel like Wonder Woman’s adventures.
Wonder Woman Was an Origin Story
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For Wonder Woman, Jenkins tells an old-fashioned superhero origin story while also putting the character in the middle of a war film. Jenkins, alongside screenwriter Allan Heinberg, drew heavily from the comic books for the first Wonder Woman film. They use the base outline of the original story from Wonder Woman creator William Molton Marston but change the World War 2 setting to World War 1.
It draws heavily from the emphasis on Greek mythology laid out in the George Perez relaunch of the 1980s and uses many elements from the New 52 origin, including Wonder Woman being the daughter of Zeus. Wonder Woman is a love letter to characters with rich comic book history by mixing various elements together to make a unique but classic version of the story.
Wonder Woman is the third most important DC superhero, standing alongside Superman and Batman to make up what is referred to as the Trinity. It is fitting that 2017’s Wonder Woman does for the character what 1978’s Superman: The Move and 1989’s Batman did for their respective characters. Those were also the first big-budget adaptations of iconic heroes which combined various eras of the characters to make one unique interpretation that then becomes the template for the character for audiences moving forward. Christopher Reeve still cast a shadow for which all other Superman is judged, the Gotham City of Batman is still the template from which others draw, and Jenkins’ version of Wonder Woman is not the template for the character.
Wonder Woman 1984 Is a Big Budget Version of the Television Series
For the sequel, Jenkins translates Wonder Woman into not only a different time period but genre. Wonder Woman 1984, as the title suggests, sees Diana operating in the 1980s, but Jenkins also puts her in a more traditional superhero story and one that audiences would have been familiar with in the 1980s. Wonder Woman 1984 draws heavily from 1978’s Superman and 1981’s Superman II, even borrowing the sequel’s conceit of the hero losing their powers.
If the 2017 film was an adaptation of the comics, then Wonder Woman 1984 can be seen as a big-budget adaptation of the Lynda Carter television series. This is apparent from the fun Lynda Carter cameo to the feature of the Invisible Plane, to even subtle details like how the first season of the series took place in World War II (with the first film set in World War I) and the second season moving forward to the 1970s (now the 1980s).
This commitment to putting Wonder Woman in the 1980s isn’t just sheer set dressing either; Jenkins fully commits to the time period including making the film feel tonally and stylistically like a movie from the era. It isn’t merely a movie set in the 80s, but also features the over-the-top performances and special effect styles common at the time. Jenkins’ take is for Wonder Woman 1984 to not just be a Wonder Woman movie set in the ’80s, but imagining what a Wonder Woman movie would have been like if it was made in the 80s. Many audiences didn’t react kindly to this and saw it as just poor VFX instead of a clear artistic decision, but Jenkins committed to making an 80s Wonder Woman movie in a more than just superficial sense.
How Jenkins Made Wonder Woman Work in Two Different Genres
Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 are two tonally different films that almost feel like they are coming from different filmmakers. Audiences are used to a change in style from superheroes, but it typically comes from a change in directors, like going from Tim Burton’s gothic Batman Returns to Joel Schumacher’s neon Batman Forever. Yet Jenkins was the sole director of both Wonder Woman films, and her decision to feature two opposite tones speaks to both her strengths as a filmmaker to not stick to just one style, but also the versatility of the character.
Jenkins’ choices for Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 resulted in a set of films that when viewed together are a celebration of the character’s rich history in pop culture. Every major aspect of Wonder Woman’s status as a pop icon is on display in the two films. For many, it is the comics and the live-action series that defined the character, so Jenkins looks to merge those elements into a single continuity.
Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 3 being scrapped is certainly a disappointment, similar to Guillermo del Toro not getting to make Hellboy 3 or if James Gunn had not returned for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Jenkins clearly had a lot of love for the character of Wonder Woman, and it was delightful to see her work the character into vastly different stories. For now, fans can only speculate what might have been for Wonder Woman 3.
