Everything That Went Wrong With Wonder Woman Franchise
With Wonder Woman unlikely to swing her lasso on screens in the years to come, what exactly has gone wrong with the franchise?
Wonder Woman has started out good. Most fans still believe that the 2017 movie directed by Patty Jenkins is arguably the best female-led superhero film, and Gal Gadot is widely considered to be a perfect casting for Diana. However, things have taken a wrong turn for the franchise, with Wonder Woman 1984 failing in box office and drawing way more criticism that it might have hoped for.
The third installment that was planned does not look likely to happen. The Hollywood Reporter stated that Warner Bros. has cancelled the threequel, and Patty Jenkins released a statement explaining why the third movie is not moving forward amid the big change in DCU.
Despite the love fans had for Gal Gadot's Diana and Jenkins' vision of the superheroine, the news of the third movie not happening was not exactly a surprise for the DC fandom. Some fans even pointed at the reasons for the franchise being shot down before Wonder Woman could land a trilogy.
"With all due respect, do you think that they're unwillingness to move forward as anything to do with the fact that the last movie failed to connect with audiences and Diana essentially committed sexual assault?" Twitter user mjarbo wondered, responding to Jenkins' statement.
The fan was referring to arguably the most controversial part of the 1984 sequel, when Diana basically used the body of a man she didn't know to bring back her lover Steve. While she saw Steve, he was actually "possessing" the body of the stranger — something that many fans amounted to sexual assault.
Other things fans did not like about Wonder Woman 1984 were "weak" storyline and the movie's inability to live up to the standard set by the first film. Harsher skeptics slammed the movie as "downright offensive" and "highly gimmicky". As a result, the sequel only grossed $169 million worldwide — a painful failure for the film with $200 million budget.
Still, despite the sequel's fiasco, fans hope that Patty Jenkins "can take an L" and move on; or even return to Wonder Woman at some point in the future when the DCU won't be rattled by a big shake-up and might do Diana justice.