Patty Jenkins details "internal war" with Warner Bros. over first Wonder Woman movie
Aux Features Film
When Patty Jenkins was hired to replace Michelle MacLaren as the director of the first Wonder Woman movie, most people naturally assumed she was coming in fresh. But the reality is that Jenkins already had a long history with the project, which she details on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. Jenkins’ relationship with Warner Bros. and Wonder Woman dates back to 2007, a few years after releasing her directorial debut, Monster. “Everybody in the industry wanted to hire me,” says Jenkins. “But I felt like they wanted to hire me like a beard; they wanted me to walk around on set being a woman director, but it was their story and their vision,” and, she adds, a “mistrust of a different way of doing things and a different point of view.”
After turning Wonder Woman down in 2007 due to her pregnancy, Jenkins returned to the project in 2011, but left following creative differences with the studio, which then hired MacLaren. “Even when I first joined Wonder Woman,” Jenkins recalls, “it was like, ‘Uhh, yeah, OK, but let’s do it this other way.’ But I was like, ‘Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads off … I’m a Wonder Woman fan, that’s not what we’re looking for.’ Still, I could feel that shaky nervousness [on their part] of my point of view.”
When things didn’t work out with MacLaren, either, Warner Bros. returned to Jenkins. “They came back to me a year later and said, ‘Do you want to do it your way?”, she says, “And boom, I just went and made the movie.” Though the end result was a major blockbuster success that helped thick-headed studio execs see that women are biologically capable of directing good movies about superheroes after all, Jenkins indicates there was still a battle with Warner Bros., which had gone through something like 30 scripts by that time. “During that period of time, there were so many scripts—because I could see the writing on the wall,” says Jenkins. “There was an internal war on every level about what Wonder Woman should be.” It seems that a significant change has taken place in Jenkins’ relationship with WB since then: The filmmaker was asked to return for the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, which released in theaters and HBO Max this past Christmas. Despite mixed reviews and Jenkins’ seeming uncertainty in the press about directing a third film, WB officially announced her return within 48 hours of the sequel’s debut.
147 Comments
Inspiring story of a woman overcoming obstacles. Would make a much better film than Wonder Woman 1984.
Idk, maybe if I saw her competing in an obstacle course during her childhood I would have a little more background information that adds nothing to the fucking story I’m about to see.
clearly a showcase of the breakthrough CGI being used in the film.
I thought that’s what the useless armor was for? With all the shit that they threw in this movie that contradicted the others, DC might as well stand for damaged continuation.
I haven’t seen WW84. But it’s funny, because “turn your liabilities into strengths and use ingenuity instead of brute force to overcome a challenge” is a really effective lesson from what is effectively another feminist action movie: the original Mulan.
It’s bizarre to me that an animated Disney musical from the ‘90s somehow has better feminist credentials than movies coming out in 2020. Especially when these newer films are designed from the ground up to be aggressively marketed as feminist.
Its funny because in the first one she was literally a god killer super weapon left behind by Zeus, and this time she gives all that up so that she can rape a man that has the mind of her BF of two weeks from 70 years ago. It’s just really, really bad.
Hey what’s that super armor hanging in the closet?Oh, that? Just super armor, protect you from anything.Think it could stop the raping?
These films are being marketed as feminist because the studio execs think it looks good and will help sales, not because the studio execs have any interest in or understanding of feminism.
Very true. But that’s the really frustrating part: Jenkins herself wrote this script, and still had the plot revolve around Wonder Woman’s first boyfriend.
There’s probably a version of this idea somewhere that works well – something about deconstructing the “women can have it all” idea where even the most super of women needs to make sacrifices. But yeesh. If ever there was a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man, one would hope it would be Diana Prince.
hmmm, could we make said scene 15 minutes long for some reason?
Patty Jenkins – World Chase Tag™ Champion
I say this as a white man, that is some white people shit.
You owe me a new monitor which is now covered in beverage.
I wish it was a story like that…Oh no, what have I done!? Shit, I’m turning into an apex predator and there are cows outside, what’s this giant wall doing here?
“I need to get somewhere far away fast and my pilot boyfriend is gone. I guess I’ll just teach myself how to fly on the spot.”
“far away”More like 4 city blocks.
Was it that close? I’m pretty sure if it was some secret government facility far away from DC. Or do you mean to her apartment to get the useless tinfoil armor?
It doesn’t help that I fell asleep halfway through the first time and restarted it halfway through to finish it, and I’m not going to rewatch it to confirm. But I believe she would have had to make that stop to grab the useless armor on her way and then not even consider the fucking magic wings for flight instead of her somehow never ending lasso.
I think she picks up the useless armor, stops over for some more light raping, then she flies to the premiere of CATS and kicks the shit out of Taylor Swift.
Hopefully you’re more recognizable as your-cheetah-self than Kristen was. We literally said out loud “that’s not Kristen Wiig” at the cheetah reveal.
Yeah, but it was really cute seeing Darryl Hannah’s character in Blade Runner dressed up as a cat.
Pretty she turns into Rum Tum Tugger, who is, after all, a curious cat.
We literally said out loud “that’s not Kristen Wiig” at the cheetah reveal.Funny, we said that when she hosted SNL. I’m like “Kristen Wiig’s face isn’t painfully frozen in place, and I remember her eyes and forehead are definitely capable of movement, so that can’t be her.”
One solid criticism I have of this movie is that there had to be a better way to bring Steve Trevor back without making Diana a rapist.Another is probably the low-key Islamaphobia…
That wouldn’t be realistic. Magic stones can only transport your resurrected spirit into a random person’s body. It’s a scientific fact. Magic stones can’t just make a dead person alive. Be realistic.
considering the magic stone transported itself into another body, the logic tracks.
It can cause walls and nukes to just sprout out of the ground, but a person? That’s an ask.
It was funny, I saw someone on twitter say it wasn’t Islamaphobia but anti Israel. I had to unfollow that person and laugh. I really would have made it Martian Manhunter who lost his memory and took the form of Steve Trevor. But that’s just me.
Just say the Dream Stone made him a new body. That’s enough of an explanation.
Make his body deteriorate in the same way Diana’s did in Alex Ross’ “Justice”. Boom, perfect Monkey’s Paw: Diana gets the love of her life back, but she has to watch him die again eventually and it’s no longer in some heroic hoorah.
I had the Manhunter Idea since I saw the trailer but yes if they were gonna do the dream stone, then no way you should do the creepy, Steve takes over someone’s body. Like how did they think that was okay? And I liked the movie more than most but that was so bad.
Or have it so that Steve returning means the death of Handsome Man, and have Diana’s powers leave due to Cheetah’s wish.
The dream stone can only make nuclear weapons appear out of nowhere. Not people
Huh, that’s not a bad idea __and__ gets another DC character introduced – he could’ve had an interesting post-credits moment too.I don’t even get why they wanted the “inhabits someone else’s body” angle, I mean, it’s already a magic stone that can change reality, just make it him – and there was no problem with anyone recognizing the “original” Steve. Take him out shopping, there’s your fun 80s fashion moment – even better, at the end, they could’ve done a dramatic poofing into nothingness bit, hell, I’m not even sure what happened, he sort of just ducked around the corner before she ran off, and what? The other guy just woke up?
yup, like he now wakes up and has no idea what happened the last few days or a week or whatever it was. Made no sense.
Well yeah, but that would be seeing the big picture and if there’s one thing the DC live-action movies sure don’t seem to know how to do is have a coherent universe
If only there was another cinematic superhero universe that was successfully established that DC and Warner Bros. could use as a blueprint to set up theirs…Oh… wait…
Of course. Any argument involving Israel will devolve into those accusations. Pro-Israel? You’re Islamaphobic. Anti-Israel? You’re an anti-semite. You just can’t win.
I remember there were a couple comments accusing Gal Gadot of being a war criminal. For one thing, military service is compulsory for Israeli citizens and, as far as I know, she never did a war crime. However, it is fair game to criticize her for actively endorsing the IDF as a civilian while they are complicit in war crimes.
Supporting the troops of her country doesn’t feel that different from the very mainstream “support the troops” ideal in the USA even if some have done terrible things (and then received pardons from the president for doing those terrible things.)
Seriously, it was on my time line back to back and two very fellow liberal’s but they have massive followings and each had 10K+ likes saying it was anti-israel and Islamaphobic. I just shook my my head.
Oh yeah that would have fixed it, if it had been an amnesiac Martian trivia-quiz answer also completely unknown to audiences. All the dumb and confusing parts of the existing movie plus: make the whole thing so confusing and bizarre that it’s like the movie’s committing public suicide as a preemptive apology for itself.9 upvotes for this idea, A.V. Club commentariat has regressed to Neanderthal
Medium-key at best.
By that point Diana made her wish and was already affected by the trickster god. And again, Steve was brought back by a trickster god–who seems to be a giant dick. While it wasn’t perfect, all the mythology I’ve read, make the way it was handled pretty on point when dealing with Gods but that’s my own opinion about a fantasy movie.
I think what they were going for was a monkey’s paw thing of “oh you brought Steve back, but you also effectively killed an innocent rando???”. Which I think is interesting if you engaged with it — you know, every wish has a cost, there’s nothing for free.But they didn’t engage with it at all, no one even acknowledges it’s an issue, and the problems with the wishes aren’t the monkey’s paw — they’re people wishing for stuff like ethnic cleansing and nuclear weapons, and getting exactly what they want. That just makes it bizarre.
I think having him at all is the bigger problem. I felt like they did a decent job at making Diana a strong character in the first film, but they decided to have a large chunk of the film and her character development focused on wishing for a man. That feels a little like a step back for the character.
I can’t speak for everyone but I want to formally say that I’m okay with Chris Pine riding in my body to sleep with Gal Gadot. Consider this verbal consent
they are lovely Humans. You are…. fine but give yourself 6 weeks prep, k?
If I were honest with myself. It would have to be 6 months prep. With those crazy MCU workout and diet consultants that turn comedians into superheroes. Even then I would still be maybe a 7 at best. Not close to Pine or Gadot levels
Pine and Gadot are lovely people, totally professional, it’s on them to make YOU look and feel good <3 so go get em tiger
It’s also a crap movie in pretty much every possible way but I don’t expect you to know anything about movies
there seems to be a lot of ‘me, me, me’ pieces in the press regarding jenkins shortly following the release of a very bad movie.
Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads offRELEASE THE SNYDER CUT!!!!!
As a woman, RELEASE IT NOW!
That comic was the worst. The next panel went “don’t extend your hand until you make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact until you say “hello, is someone there?” And don’t say “hello, is someone there” until you’ve made some throat clearing noises.”Then for panel after panel it goes on about sending courtesy letters, posting ads in newspapers expressing interest in meeting, doing lots of research on the people you’re approaching, taking lots of preliminary ettiquette lesssons, shopping for appropriate, nonthreatening wardrobe options for the first encounter, conducting focus groups to try out different outreach approaches. Her people really had some long, boring sayings.
I just want you to know that I appreciate the work you put in here.
LOL!
Wonder Woman of the movies literally comes from a tribe of people who have been training for war for generations. That saying seems unlikely in the movie version.
This has been an aspect of her character since the Golden Age.
It’s not about her character, though, is it? An island of women bred solely for fighting. The quote doesn’t jibe with what we see on screen. Diana DOES present as being kindly, but not her community of women bred for WaAAaarrr. I didn’t see them canter up, extending a hand in friendship, when the Nazis showed up. Whatever the comics said.
WWI didn’t have Nazis, they were Imperial German Soldiers. They were two very different wars and shouldn’t be mixed up.
That one, I’ll eat. I forgot which war for a second, not which German army. Thanks for setting me straight.
Yay! Glad to be of service.
True, adullboy — but they were written like Nazis, because — much as I loved the first WW movie, the last half was pretty much Captain America: The First Avenger, set in different war (different for Diana, too!).
Women want to see Wonder Woman rape a man!!
Sounds like Snyder was actually the one most supportive of Jenkin’s changes to the first movie. Given the trouble he had making Justice League around the same time, it’s not surprising he would show solidarity with her.
Someone needed to have an “internal war” over whether the script for 1984 was even marginally passable. I still can’t believe they thought this movie plot and execution was acceptable. This almost made Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice look good in comparison. Nothing should ever do that.
I can kind of see the metatextual direction that WW84 was trying to go in, but yes, Patty Jenkins + good editorial circles would have been as good as George Lucas and his editorial circle was for Empire Strikes Back.
I’m still of the opinion that Jenkens + David Sandberg (Shazam, Lights Out) would produce some amazing work.
BvS does good look in comparison. Not just visually and direction-wise (don’t know happened there since the first WW was good in both respects), but also when it comes to their political aspects. “Superman will do good even when politics get in the way and Batman should not be a neoconservative” are something we all can agree with, unlike the confusing way WW84 depicts things. Like, why are they doing a Trump allegory but with an unambiguous Hispanic character and Arabs? Are these Arabs actually representing Palestinians? If so, that’s pretty bad considering you have an actress who supported the IDF. And also the whole body switch rape thing (which Jenkins is actually okay with).
I don’t doubt that she had a lot of sexism and outright misogyny to overcome in making it in Hollywood as a woman, and I salute her for achieving things far beyond what I would likely have managed in the same circumstances, but this narrative would have felt a lot more satisfying after the first movie and before the release of the fatally unambitious, sloppy, paycheck-cashing sequel.
The sequel has many problems, but it’s definitely not “unambitious”. It has big ambitions, it just comes up way short of them.
Bringing Chris Pine back (by dubious storytelling means, in a way that is honestly kind of icky when you think about it) is IMHO unambitious, in that it plays it safe by recreating positive elements from the first movie instead of exploring new territory and new relationships. Time-jumping WW from the 1920’s to the 1980’s was unambitious (IMHO) in that it lends itself to easy cultural satire instead of grappling with much more interesting historical moments that they could have used instead.I can’t help but compare WW84 to “The Dark Knight.” You don’t have to enjoy Nolan’s take on Batman, but I think most everyone would agree that “Batman Begins” was a solid, enjoyable Batman movie, but then with the sequel he took some really big swings, and when they connected the results were electric. I don’t see anything like that in WW84, and I don’t think it’s because Jenkins isn’t capable of it – I just don’t think she cares enough to try. My guess is she thinks of the movie as disposable, and so she made a movie that’s easily discarded. It didn’t need to be, though, and that’s a huge missed opportunity.
>in that it lends itself to easy cultural satire instead of grappling with much more interesting historical moments that they could have used instead.I’m not sure the world is ready for the black-and-white Swedish arthouse film that shows Wonder Woman pointedly and intentionally dipping from WWII, allowing the Holocaust, firebombing of Dresden, Japanese atrocities against China/Korea/Pacific Islands, mass death and starvation of the Russians, two nukes dropped on Japanese cities, etc. etc. to all just kinda happen.It’d be interesting as fuck if done well; there’s even precedent in the comics for a version of Diana that is just 100% done with humanity’s bullshit (though those versions tend to be a bit more martial and proactive on other fronts. Not so much with the Swedish arthouse vibes.) But it ain’t going to put any butts in the seats… or, uh, garner streaming service subs, I guess, now.It really doesn’t help that WW84 was just a total clusterfuck on its own merits, even setting aside this fence-sitting weirdness with Snyder’s bullshit. By its end, WW84 has hilariously rejected the idea that WW dipped from human society for a hundred years, but at the beginning of the movie (well, the second beginning, the mall scene) they were paying stupid lip service to the idea that she’s totally keeping a low profile.The one thing I can understand – in a sea of bafflement – is that, yes, a lot of potential audience members would get very confused by a new continuity without recasts. That is a problem. But that doesn’t excuse or explain the sea of bafflement surrounding it. I mean, what in the holy hell is this multi-million dollar investment into the Snyder Cut of JL, when literally everybody else writing/directing subsequent movies does not want to deal with the worldbuilding he did in it?
I honestly cannot understand – did she not have input on saying “hey guys, making Wonder Woman hung up on a dude for nearly a century is a terrible look”?
They tried to make a Wonder Woman version of the old Superman 2 film.
But it that movie Superman actively chooses to give up his powers for love. Here it’s just an unexpected side effect that happens to our protagonist, and much less moving.
I mean she wrote it so she was probably fine with it
From what I heard it was her and two others? Not sure how that works.
It’d definitely be difficult to determine who wrote what, but generally speaking the writer’s guild rules only allow crediting of those heavily involved with the original story and the screenplay. Not to get too far into it, but that’s why Marvel movies (and this one likely) usually have ‘story by’ two people even though 20 people wrote the thing (only 2 people can be credited for the story) and then ‘screenplay by’ often gets the main rewriters. Basically if you contribute more then 33 percent to the final shooting script you’re eligible for credit, so it’s fair to say that since she is credited on both Patty Jenkins was heavily involved enough to change things if she recognized them as an issue. I’m fairly confident she and Geoff Johns are treated as a writing ‘team’ for the screenplay but I’d have to re-watch the credits to see if its ‘Jenkins & Johns’ or ‘Jenkins and Johns’, but since I doubt they went through the rigmarole to get 3 individual credits on there that’s my guess.
To be honest, I appreciate the deep dive! Thanks!And I am sincerely wondering WTF the thought process was.
If they truly wanted it to be a feminist film they would have shown someone wishing for the passing of the ERA in the 80s, not that a woman would give up her demigod abilities for some freaky friday D.
“The downside is Phyllis Schafly is now immortal”okay shit I would watch the hell out of that
This is the Wonder Woman x Mrs. America crossover I didn’t know I needed.
She wrote the script. It sounds like these were all Jenkins’ choices. And she had the clout to push back against WBs notes.
She wrote the 2nd movie, but didn’t write the 1st. So this is completely on her.
I like the sequel because it turned Wonder Woman into a rapist.
I actually think it was ambitious to try to bring a different energy and sense of goofiness to these films. Like, it’s a total risk to try to make a film that feels more like Superman 3 than anything else in the DC universe. But… a whole lot of bizarre choices, and the execution was off. Also: two hours and thirty minutes. Unforgivable!
Jesus, the MCU dodged a bullet here.
Studio Notes:1. Steve Trevor needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.2. Whenever Steve Trevor’s not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking ‘Where’s Steve Trevor?’ ”
3. Whenever Steve is being complicit in WW raping a stranger, all the other characters should be asking, “Who knew Steve Trevor’s so cool with raping?”
Also he needs to be overwhelmed by a train station
Proof that, sometimes, studio interference is a really good idea.
WW84’s first draft needed to come back with a “are you really hanging the entire plot on a literal magic wishing rock with no rules?” Post-It attached.
Unless that was the studio’s idea…
Maybe get a person with a comic or sci-fi background a shot to look over everything and tighten it up if those things aren’t one’s forte. Comic book movies are ridiculous, but usually they do a bit to earn it. This felt like someone going I don’t know it just does.
Not only that, but the rules weren’t consistent. Pedro Pascal gets to dictate and change the terms of each wish at will when the stone was allegedly bound to trading the thing they wanted for the thing they care most about. People only get one wish until the plot needs someone to get a second one. All the wishes come true until one doesn’t because it’s convenient. I don’t need a Christopher Nolan psychics lesson on how it works, but at least follow your own rules.
Upvoted for the West Wing callback.
Completely unintentional. What did I say? Was it my misspelling of physics?
Yeah. There’s a West Wing cold open where the press secretary pretends not to understand the distinction between physicists and psychics to needle a colleague who’s super-invested in an announcement on unified field theory or somesuch. Then she goes up to the podium and announces “Psychics at the Fermi National Laboratory…”
I knew that had to be it. Total Sorkin joke.
Isn’t Geoff Johns supposed be the guy with a comic and Sci-Fi background here? He’s got both co-story credit and co-screenplay credit with Jenkins and Expendables series writer Dave Callaham (who for some reason, seems to have his fingers on a bunch of upcoming comic book movie screenplays, including Shang-Chi, the Into the Spiderverse sequel).
Gee, I wonder all the studio notes the MCU directors got after featuring magic rocks in so many movies all leading up to one guy collecting them onto a magic glove.
Whatever about the magic rock, movies about magic rocks just made 100 billion dollars, the real problem is that the plot and direction suck. The opening two scenes (the limp, zero-stakes Themiscyra race that makes the pod race from Ep 1 looks like Bullitt, and the interminable, weirdly shot and acted mall heist) are just a one-two punch of action movie incompetence.
Well, Marvel had a lot of success with magic stones. So…
Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads off
True, but they probably didn’t want a text book Blechdel Test fail.
I don’t think I’d make large statements like that. Women aren’t a monolith. I’d not really make a statement regarding what all gay dudes want or don’t want.
The peen? Is it the peen?
Not necessarily, but often. People are weird.
Women: don’t want to see WW cut off heads, DO want to see WW raping people.
You spelled Bechdel wrong. And also WW84 fully passes the Bechdel Test. They spend several minutes discussing the magic rock when they first meet before discussing a man. The Bechdel Test is a really low bar.
Her version seems, at best, a little self-serving and not very accurate. She directed Monster in 2002. It was released in 2003. Her next film was Wonder Woman and it wasn’t released until 14 years later. She had occasional stints as a television director, but the notion that everyone wanted her after Monster seems tenuous at best. And given that she’s gone out of her way to torch the people who eventually did give her a chance at directing a feature film in the press in recent days, I would guess that there’s a good chance that she’s not particularly well-regarded by studio executives in general in Hollywood.
Well, Disney just gave her a big Star Wars project, so I guess someone in Hollywood regards her highly. That plus Warners setting her up as a target for other directors and studios angry about the HBO Max scheme is probably why she’s being more candid than you’d expect about the studio now.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think she probably has good reason and everything she’s saying is probably true and also that WW84 gave her ‘fuck you’ money to be able to say whatever she was going to say in interviews. But I also tend to know Hollywood types and typically if you’ve been out in the wilderness for 14 years and studio gives you your shot, you don’t say much about them, even when other people might be. I’m just saying that after making an Academy Award caliber film with Charlize Theron, there’s likely a reason she was originally out in the wilderness in the first place all those years.
I don’t see any reason not to believe the reason she gives for having been out in the wilderness: most of the projects she was offered wanted to use her as set dressing and not actually let her tell stories. So while I get what you’re saying about not badmouthing people in Hollywood and would usually agree, if you have the kind of integrity to refuse to make projects you disagree with, and then eventually hit it big, you probably should tell people so that others in your position can learn from your example.In any case, making her the face of the HBO Max move then stiffing creatives on all the other projects after they paid her probably made for more bad feelings against her in Hollywood than any discussion of Wonder Woman’s tortured production history ever could.
Reglidan… Or, she had a kid which took up much of her time from 2007 – 2017, which was why she largely worked in television, except for a few major projects she was attached to for a bit before leaving.
Prior to that, at least according to The Bouffant of All Knowledge Wikipedia, she worked with both Chuck Yeager and Ryan Gosling to get projects off the ground — but as is typical in Hollywood, both got stuck in Development Hell.
As a woman, even one who’d directed Charlize Theron to an Oscar win with Monster, I imagine she found it…challenging to get movies made. She wasn’t nominated for an Oscar herself — her biggest award win there was an Independent Spirit Award for “Best First Feature”.
Monster is a not good movie containing an all-time great performance, so I get where you’re coming from. My studio takeaway would be “hey, let’s hire that Charlize Theron! She’s fucking terrific! The director? I mean, okaaaaay…” That said, Hollywood is shitty and dumb, and most stuff gets talked about but never made, so I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to what she’s saying, re: lady-window-dressing.
Might watch Shazam again, that movie was fun.
Good choice. Those writers understood the character.
Funny, isn’t it, how a superhero movie like SHAZAM! that is mediocre in so many different ways can still be made an enjoyable experience by casting a talented lead and making the story fun even during the climactic physical confrontation?
Yeah. It was a breath of fresh air for sure after the real failure of the DCEU. Pretty by the numbers stuff, but a talented cast/creative team and didn’t take itself too seriously, and it still didn’t feel like a Marvel movie which is obviously part of what they’ve been trying to avoid. Marvel movies are all pretty formulaic and mediocre, but the stand out ones shine for the same reasons.
Warner Brothers = AT&T, a notorious corporate monster. It like having your screenplay plot points dictated to you by venture capitalists.
Jenkins returned to the project in 2011, but left following creative differences with the studio, which then hired MacLaren.Does this timing mean she was supposed to work with the famously bad Whedon script or was that one the TV pilot?
Yep. The Whedon script for the WW project was for the movie.
Woooooooooooof. No wonder they had so much trouble keeping a director.
I’m pretty sure the Whedon’s involvement was 2005-06, so it’s unlikely that was the script she turned down in 2007 (IIRC, Whedon was attached to write and direct). More likely they tried to bring her on after that fell through. The pilot was 2011, so she probably rejoined the project after the TV show failed.
I’m curious at what point was Nicholas Winding Refn in consideration for WW; before or after they had somewhat of a script. I’ve read that he said he turned WW down, but who knows when. Drive was great, but his two follow-ups to that were forgettable, so I wonder what he might have done with WW having never done a big budget franchise before.
The link to the review for Monster really makes me miss the golden age of AV Club comments.
She’s a much better director than writer. WW84 may be the worst superhero screenplay since Green Lantern. And the sad think about that movie is that the original screenplay was quite good. I won’t even mention the terrible CGI. The story is the real problem. It fails on all levels.
This sounds slightly like the whole situation Patty had with Marvel over Thor 2, where they didn’t like her vision of the story.They certainly proved her wrong with the iffy version we ended up with, eh?
Jenkins would have included more rapes.
Actually, it wasn’t that they didn’t like her changes, but that they weren’t willing to the delay the movie into 2014. Hence why there’s not a lot of animosity between her and Marvel.
Interesting.
I thought it was that they didn’t like the forbidden love story angle she wanted to do around Thor and Jane, as in they’re literally from different worlds and the problem that caused.
This interview doesn’t quite hint at that, but it sort of suggests that it was (amicable) creative differences.edit: these quotes pulled from a Vanity Fair interview seem to expand on it a bit more.
I mean, it’s possible they didn’t like the love story angle either, but the biggest stumbling block was indeed the release date.
Either way what we ended up with wasn’t good enough. Patty dodged a bullet there.edit: dammit I should have made a bracelet deflected bullet joke there.
Well gosh, looks like the studio was right and Jenkins was decidedly wrong, because when she was given more freedom she made WW84, easily the worst big movie of the year, and one of the most boring superhero movies ever made.
More virtue signaling?! More “help help! I’m a tragic victim?!”Give us a break. Even male directors don’t get complete control unless they have a proven track record. Spielberg and Nolan she is NOT. WW84 is a terrible disaster and now we can see why Hollywood was hesitant to give her full control. She obviously berates and hates men. She can’t write a cohesive story etc. Why don’t they get Gale Ann Hurd? She has proven herself and she doesn’t have a venomous public image.
And now everyone knows that giving Patty Jenkins control of the script was definitely not the right idea.Wonder Woman has only thought of this one good Chris/Steve she knew for like a week 70 years ago? Even Captain America wrote off Bucky, and he died like two years ago in that Chris/Steve’s mind, and they were best friends!
I went in with low expectations and still came away disappointed. Was it simply poorly written or studio meddling? DC has always taken themselves too seriously. They have jokes, but don’t know how to have fun. I actually think they don’t even know how they made Shazam. A movie set in the 80s? If it had a killer soundtrack and maws more fun like Thor Ragnarok it would have been stellar.
I can’t wait for the tell all about what a cluster WW84 was.
the sequel should have focused on one villain, not two. Plus better dialogue.
The first WW was atrocious after the first 10 minutes.
I shudder to imagine it was even worse before PJ got involved. But then she was stuck with an underwear model who can barely speak English in the lead role.
There were a lot of very good setpieces in the first WW. For all its flaws, I think I would have enjoyed it overall if it hadn’t been for the fact that the very worst sequence, both technically and narratively, was the climactic battle.
Movie 1: Ares the God of War is real, geopolitics of WW1 aren’t real but WW1 is still happening, luckily girl power I guess
Movie 2: Magic rock is real, super woman uses it to bring back guy she knew for a few days 70 years ago, bad man gets rock, luckily girl power…plus people are inherently good and will give back their wishes if you tell them they have to even if they wished for their terminal cancer to disappear or their captor to die or be discovered…i guess?Can’t wait for movie 3
Jenkins recalls, “it was like, ‘Uhh, yeah, OK, but let’s do it this other way.’ But I was like, ‘Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads off … I’m a Wonder Woman fan, that’s not what we’re looking for. The original ‘Monster’ script was a cuddly Disney movie about a feminist porcupine that has to save the orphanage …
“Everybody in the industry wanted to hire me,” says Jenkins.Go home Jenkins
I read that in the new Flash movie they are retconning his death to being saved by the Flash. That would be better than the garbage we got in WW84.