Reflecting on the details of the production of the first Wonder Woman, director Patty Jenkins described an “internal war” with Warner Bros.
At the time of the collaboration, the studio was less interested in Jenkins’ ideas than in the symbolic fact that a female superhero film is being directed by a female director.
They hired me as their beard. They wanted me, as a woman, to just walk around the set, but that was their story and their vision. What about my ideas? They didn’t even want to read my script.
When Jenkins first joined the Wonder Women project, all of her suggestions were answered by “Oh cool, but let’s do it differently,” Jenkins said. However, she insisted that “women do not want to see [the film’s protagonist] harsh, harsh and chopping off people’s heads.”
I myself am a fan of Wonder Woman, and this is not what we are waiting for. But I still felt their nervousness. They were afraid it would not be viable …
According to her, the studio was terrified of all the female superhero films that ended up failing, plus “Christopher Nolan directed the Dark Knight trilogy.” She points out that Warner Bros. just trying to figure out what she was doing with the DC MCU.
There was an internal war at every level.
For the first time, negotiations for work on Wonder Woman between Jenkins and Warner Bros. passed back in 2004, but only three years later the studio decided to take her as the director of the film. Due to pregnancy, she had to abandon the project, but in 2011 she returned to the project.
Then disagreements began in the team, Jenkins had to leave to work on the second part of “Thor”, while with Warner Bros. hired Michelle McLaren. With the latter, the work did not come out, so Jenkins was still returned to work on the film already on her terms, but together with Zach Snyder.
As a reminder, by January 4, the rating of “Wonder Woman 1984” on the IMDb portal dropped to 5,5 points – this is the level of the failed “Green Lantern”. Patty Jenkins’ new film is called one of the most unsuccessful adaptations of DC comics.
