Joss Whedon is becoming increasingly important to the on-screen superhero world.
We are at the beginning of the current heyday of on-screen superhero franchises.
Even2007s near missJustice Leaguemoviewouldnt have had anything to do with Warner Bros. other DC-inspired movies.
Enter Joss Whedon, a TV dude with a rabid, yet relatively small following.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has already been struggling to make a Wonder Woman movie for a decade.
Like so many Hollywood projects, the movie never came to fruition.
Heres what he came up with…
What is the shape of Whedons Wonder Woman story?
Like the currentWonder Womanmovie, WhedonsWonder Womanbegins with Steve Trevor crash landing in Themyscira.
This was a bit of a plot hole, in my opinion.
Anyway… Diana ends up saving Steve by challenging her mother to combat.
Ultimately, her mom wins, but her daughters passion is enough to convinceHippolyte to let Steve go.
Diana goes with him, desperate to understand and help the world of men.
Though Strife may have fallen, Callas and Ares remain as villains to potentially recur in futureWonder Womanmovies.
If only…
Is it any good?
A lot of the online feedback about Joss WhedonsWonder Womanscript is negative.
Many readers feel that fans dodged a bullet.
I can see the criticisms.
However, in the context of where the superhero movie audience was at the time (i.e.
Its also important to note that this is an unproduced script.
Likely, the script would have undergone some changes from this draft and over the course of production.
That being said, there were narrative choices made in Dianas script that could have been better.
I would have liked to see Diana fighting a female villain.
Whedon also did a poor job developing many of the supporting characters in the script.
I would have especially liked to see Diana get one well-developed female friendship after leaving Themyscira.
But, again, who knows what might have changed in this script if it was produced.
Whedons Diana.
Like all of Whedons characters, Diana is flawed (I mean that as a compliment).
She means well, but there is much she has to learn about the human world.
Of course there is: she has never been here, raised far away on Themyscria.
Its actually a pretty great critique of privileged Americans sometimes problematic relationship to heroism.
I see buildings coming down.
Because every day you wake up knowing you might just go back to paradise.
Youre not a hero, Diana.
Youre a fucking tourist.
I like that Whedon made her physically invincible, as well.
Before temporarily losing her powers, Diana can notably be wounded by bullets (though not fatally).
This made the stakes of the battle scenes a bit higher.
Why it didnt make it to the big screen.
The clearer explanation: Warner Bros. didnt like Whedons script or vision for the character.
My chest… so tight!
Okay, stay calm and Ill explain as best I can.
Its pretty complicated, so bear with me.
I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked.
Hey, not that complicated.
Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional.
It happens all the time.
I dont think any of us expected it to this time, but it did.
I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.
These guys had the clarity and grace to skip that part.
So Im a free man.
After ditching Whedons script, Warner Bros. wouldnt make a solo Wonder Woman movie until, well,now.
Wonder Woman would have been a game-changer for the superhero genre.
Weve had trilogies forBlade,Captain America,Thor, andIron Man, among countless others.
Do you know how many of those 130 films had female leads?
WhedonsWonder Womanprobably wouldnt have been equivalent toTheDark KnightorSuperman: The Movie.
But it could have been something even more important.
