One of the biggest shakeups to come thus far under the tenure of newly appointed DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran was the announcement on Wednesday that Patty Jenkin’s Wonder Woman 3 would be cancelled.
Although initial reports suggested that the decision was made by Warner Bros. and/or Gunn and Safran were the ones who had decoded to not go forward with production of Wonder Woman 3, it was actually director Patty Jenkins who walked away from the project after “rejecting studio notes on her treatment,” according to insider sources from The Wrap.
“Warner Bros. Film Group Co-Chairpersons and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy didn’t think the treatment worked and decided not to move forward with the film in its current iteration. Gunn and Safran, who had nothing to do with the decision, also agreed with De Luca and Abdy that the treatment didn’t work,” the insiders continued.
De Luca and Abdy attempted to correspond further with Jenkins, explaining that they didn’t understand the treatment, didn’t believe it was the right direction to take the franchise and asked Jenkins if she would consider pitching a different idea for Wonder Woman 3 that would diversify from her initial treatment.
Jenkins’ response was not an agreeable one. Jenkins declined the request, and according to the insider, let De Luca and Abdy “know that they were wrong, that they didn’t understand her, didn’t understand the character, didn’t understand character arcs and didn’t understand what Jenkins was trying to do.”
To further reiterate her point, Jenkins sent De Luca an e-mail with a link to the Wikipedia entry for “character arc” at its conclusion.
“Jenkins was told that if she wanted to come back and pitch a different direction for Wonder Woman, the studio would hear it. She stood firm to her vision and responded that if they didn’t want to do her treatment, she wasn’t going to do a different one and would instead just move on to her next film,” the insider added.
Apparently, Jenkins refused to hear what newly-appointed DC Universe CEOs, Gunn and Safran had to say in the matter, despite the latter two not being involved with the decision to not move forward with her version of Wonder Woman 3.
“She just doesn’t want to allow them to have a seat at the table to have an opinion on something new that she might come up with,” the insider said.
Gunn took to Twitter on Thursday and said, “Although this first month at DC has been fruitful, building the next ten years of story takes time [and] we’re still just beginning.
“Peter [and] I chose to helm DC Studios knowing we were coming into a fractious environment, both in the stories being told & in the audience itself [and] there would be an unavoidable transitional period as we moved into telling a cohesive story across film, TV, animation, and gaming.
“We know we are not going to make every single person happy every step of the way, but we can promise everything we do is done in the service of the STORY & in the service of the DC CHARACTERS we know you cherish and we have cherished our whole lives.”
Warner Bros. has not decided to discontinue the Wonder Woman franchise altogether at the time of this writing and Gal Gadot, who plays the titular character is still associated with the role. Gadot has not been addressed what her involvement with the role will be without Jenkins directing, so we’ll keep you updated when that information becomes available.
