Wonder Woman 3 cancelled

[Ernie]

The Patti Jenkins WW 3 movie appears to be cancelled. On the heels of shelving the Batgirl movie, I'd say studio brass are as terrified of female led superhero movies as ever. Dang it.

[Mr. X]

The Patti Jenkins WW 3 movie appears to be cancelled. On the heels of shelving the Batgirl movie, I'd say studio brass are as terrified of female led superhero movies as ever. Dang it.

Female led or just a bad script? They are cancelling a lot of projects. I wouldn't read this as female led being the problem. Usually female starring movies also have some other baggage the larger audience doesn't want to watch.

[Supergirllegend]

I can’t believe this news. Terrible- even though 84 was terrible she deserved a trilogy. It’s so nerve wracking being a DC fan.

[Lurkndog]

Here is the Hollywood Reporter article that broke the story.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235276804/

What appears to be going on is that James Gunn and Peter Safran have put together an outline for their "Phase 2" of the DC film universe, and they are not planning on using the script Patty Jenkins wrote for WW3.

Remember that the storyline for Patty Jenkin's WW3 was supposed to be a standalone story.

I suspect that Gunn and Safran have put together a new story arc for the next batch of movies, and they want them to be more closely tied together.

It would make sense to use Wonder Woman 3 as the launching point for that story arc. It's going to be a high profile movie, and Gal Gadot is established in the role and popular with audiences. Also, the ending of WW84 leaves the character free from any ongoing storylines.

We might hear something next week if Zazlav approves their outline.

I think it's a sure thing that there will still be a Wonder Woman 3. It just won't be a standalone side story.

[Visitor]

Technically it's not cancelled, but that the current script isn't going forward. So they aren't cutting ties with Gadot and Jenkins. Probably shove it off into development hell for a few years while they try what they hope are better projects.

They are already mending tie with the Batgirl directors.

[Lurkndog]

I certainly hope they can keep Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot on board.

Gal is probably contractually bound to do the movie, but if bridges get burned with Patty Jenkins she'd be a lot less happy about it.

Too bad Allan Heinberg is busy doing Sandman for Netflix.

[shevek]

I think it's pretty simple: it doesn't matter if Patty Jenkins is involved - there are any number of competent directors (and writers) who could make a way better WW movie than WW84. I wasn't sad to hear about this or Batgirl because if Warner is losing that much money, then let them get their house in order first. Then they can make the best movie possible, instead of some kind of haphazard flop.

What's probably going to happen is they'll first put Gal Gadot into some kind of group situation in a movie (no concrete idea, but it'll probably involve some Justice League members) to rebuild some of the confidence lost from that WW84 debacle. Then they'll do a new Wonder Woman film later on. She has a reasonable window of maximum hotness (she and ScarJo are about the same age) so it's probably going to be in the next three years.

At least that's my guess. We'll see what happens. For now, Shazam 2 and Aquaman 2 are the next moves, right? Or did I forget something?

[Ernie]

James Gunn made a comment about the WW 3 controversy and said...absolutely nothing.

[bushwackerbob]

I look at it as DC Comics getting their house in order and releasing their films in a coordinated fashion, much in the way Marvel does with their various superhero properties. Now that there is a new guy at the helm, and new corporate ownership, it makes sense that he wants a reset of DC Comics and the rollout of their properties.

[Mr. X]

So is Flash coming out?

[MercianComics]

That's a shame. While WW84 wasn't very good, I thought it was Gal's best performance so far...

[Heroine Addict]

So is Flash coming out?

Only if Ezra can keep himself out of trouble before the release date.

[Mr. X]

Removed

[shevek]

Studios may have to rethink a lot of stuff. 2023 is estimated to be worse financially than 2022. Also Russia just outlawed promotion of LGBT in any way. China might follow suit. And that kind of stuff also doesn't sell in the middle ears or south pacific countries.

I have written a somewhat inspirational screed in response to this, but I'm afraid that it might be considered too political?
Let me know if you want to see it. After all, there's not a whole lot more to talk about in this thread - WW3 is cancelled
and that's that.

[Ernie]

If I had the authority to delete this thread I would do so right now. But I don't, so I relinquish all responsibility for it.

[five_red]

It is a myth that studios pay attention to overseas markets when deciding the content of their films. Star Wars always bombed in China, but neither Lucasfilm nor Disney ever tried to make the franchise more popular by altering the content of the movies. Domestic box office, domestic Blu-ray, and domestic merchandising are still where it matters most. Theatre chains, streaming platforms, and film distributors may vary for each world territory, so the amount of money the studio makes from each person who watches their film in an overseas market may not be as high as what they'd make from the domestic market (where they are more likely own a financial stake in the platforms the movie is shown through.)

What we're being told is that Patti Jenkins' Wonder Woman 3 has been cancelled. Not WW3, just the WW3 script that PJ was developing. We don't know whether this decision had anything to do with pro-woke, anti-woke, or Hunter Biden's laptop.

Let me try to build a wider point on 'wokeness', in a way that hopefully won't be a partisan custard pie fight, but actually tries to look at the issue at a distance...

FYI: I've been recently re-reading Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind", which deals (using experimental data) with the psychology of liberals and conservatives, and why they seem to see the world through such very different lenses. I first read the book a decade ago, but the re-reading have freshened my perspective on how very differently liberals and conservatives engage with the world. Whether you are a conservative or a liberal, the book humanises the opposition and makes you question the absolute certainty of your own position.

There's always been action movies with strong liberal progressive messages (think of all the war films with anti-war messages, all the early 70s sci-fi movies that were anti-Bomb, anti-capitalism, pro-environment), but these have always been counterbalanced by more conservative appealing films (think of all the war films that celebrate victory and valour, think of all the 80s sci-fi movies that were just good vs. evil with lots of big weaponry.) But the rise in popularity of the modern superhero and sci-fi genres, such that they dominates action movies and tv today, has meant that many action movies now carry progressive messages.

So... my point is... maybe it isn't so much that movies and tv have suddenly become all woke and liberal -- there's always been woke and liberal moves and tv shows -- the problem is that the dominance of the fantasy / sci-fi / superhero genres (genres that have origins in children's media) has risen to such prominence that they push out a lot of the non-liberal voices., The fact that Star Trek (TOS) was incredibly progressive for its time is always trotted out as an example of how wokeness is not something new. This is true --- but it forgets that there was a lot of tv drama in other genres (cowboys, crime, cold war secret agents) contemporary to Star Trek that skewed towards more traditional, small-c conservative, non-progressive, messages. Today we have plenty of modern day Kirk Douglas' and Christopher Reeve's, but where are the modern day John Wayne's or Clint Eastwood's..? Where are the movies or tv shows that house action heroes that appeal to the right..?

What we perhaps need is not less liberal progressive content out of 'Hollywood', but a return to Westerns, spies, gritty cops... genres that are the natural home of traditional, small-c conservative, themes.

And for all those who cry "but Hollywood is a liberal woke propaganda machine -- Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep would never allow a modern Dirty Harry or Deathwish!!" ,,, let me remind you that Hollywood is a business, and if Dirty Harry is what the studios will think sells, then Dirty Harry is what you'l get in bulk..! We just have to wean them off of their addiction to fantasy, sci-fi, and superheroes.

Just a thought.

R5

[RedMountain]

I think with Hollywood they just get stuck in these ruts when a genre gets popular. It feels like the last few big superhero films have had overall luke warm reception publicly, but at the end of the day they still make a boat load of money and I think that's all Hollywood cares about. I was hoping that Top Gun doing amazing at the box office would kind of get us back to the days of more standard action fare, but I think despite my own disdain for the spamming of superhero films, they are going to stick around for awhile. I don't think any of the recent MCU films have been good/great, almost like they are mailing it in, but they still brought in a ton of money, which is all Hollywood needs to make more, thus continuing the current rut we're in.

[Lurkndog]

And now Henry Cavill has announced that he won't be coming back to play Superman after all.

His thank-you and good wishes to everyone at DC is a model of rare grace.



No word yet if Gal Gadot is coming back as WW.

There is a rumor that DC wants to clean house and start over with a clean slate.

From a story point of view, that makes sense.

From a casting point of view, it seems like a terrible waste.