In yet a further muddying of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s supposed plans to ‘reset’ DC’s cinematic continuity, Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot has confirmed that her incarnation of the Amazing Amazon will indeed be returning for a third solo outing.
The actress let slip her plans to reprise her role as Diana of Themyscira during a recent interview given to ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian (prior to the current WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes) in promotion of her upcoming Netflix film, Heart of Stone.
“I love portraying Wonder Woman,” Gadot told Killian. “It’s so close to and dear to my heart. From what I heard from James and from Peter is that we’re gonna develop a Wonder Woman 3 together.”
Though Gadot unsurprisingly offered no further information regarding the early-in-development Wonder Woman 3, noted film scooper @CanWeGetToast – whose past track record includes accurate leaks regarding The Flash‘s ending scenes, Miles and Gwens’ relationship in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the changing of Captain America 4’s title – provided some supposed behind-the-scenes insight into its development.
Pre-strikes, #WonderWoman3 was supposed to shoot this summer with a script by Patty Jenkins that Gal really liked,” they claimed. “Jenkins was obviously returning to direct, but James Gunn scrapped her script entirely because he thought her take didn’t fit with where he wanted to take Wonder Woman in the DCU. This led to Jenkins no longer being involved in the project in ANY capacity.”
“James Gunn, Peter Safran AND Gal Gadot will develop a NEW version of Wonder Woman 3, from scratch (Post-strikes, obviously),” the scooper further posited. “At the end of the day it won’t really be WONDER WOMAN 3, but a reboot starring the same actress. Some things we saw in her previous movies will stay the same, some will change.”
Interestingly, in terms of Gunn’s scrapping of Jenkin’s original treatment for a third Wonder Woman film, @CanWeGetToast was not the first to bring this development to the public.
In December 2022, shortly after Gunn and Safran were appointed to their roles as the co-heads of DC Studios, entertainment news outlet TheWrap reported that, per their sources, Jenkins had “walked off the project after rejecting studio notes on her treatment”.
However, rather than Jenkins’ exit being prompted by Gunn, the outlet’s Umberto Gonzalez revealed that, in actuality, “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,” Gonzalez reported. “De Luca and Abdy spoke to Jenkins first and communicated that they didn’t get the treatment, didn’t think it was the right direction for the franchise and asked Jenkins if she would consider pitching something else for the IP in another direction.”
This rejection apparently did not sit well with the director, as she allegedly responded by letting 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.”
Jenkins is then said to have dismissively closed out her initial email response by linking De Luca to the Wikipedia article on ‘character arc’.
Despite this tension, the studio execs reportedly made sure to let Jenkins know that should she wish to write something more in line with DC Studios’ new direction, they would be open to hearing any subsequent pitches she may come up with.
However, the director allegedly responded by asserting that if they didn’t want to move forward with the first treatment she had submitted, rather than entertain any of their requests, she would simply leave the project.
And though they supposedly no hand in the initial rejection of her script, Jenkins reportedly refused any subsequent input from either Gunn or Safran.
“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,” one of TheWrap’s insider informed the outlet.
As of writing, no official comment regarding Gadot’s return has been offered by either Gunn, Safran, or any other representative from Warner Bros. Discovery.