Though the prior announcement of Wonder Woman 3’s cancellation framed the decision as being based simply on a difference in creative visions, a new report claims that the Amazon’s next outing was actually canned because director Patty Jenkins refused to entertain DC Studios’ feedback on her initial script.
As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter on December 7th, per their insider sources, the decision to pass on the Jenkins and veteran DC scribe Geoff Johns’ co-written threequel was made after the director had “submitted her treatment”.
Following her submission, Jenkins is said to have been approached by current DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran “as well as Warner Bros. Pictures co-chairs and co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy,” who in turn “broke the news to the filmmaker, telling her the project — as it stood — did not fit in with the new (but still unfolding) plans.”
But it seems there was far more turmoil surrounding this move than THR’s insiders initially let on.
Speaking to their own insiders, The Wrap discovered that the choice to pass on WW3 was made exclusively by De Luca and Abdy after they found “that the treatment didn’t work” as they “didn’t think it was the right direction for the franchise”.
Rather than immediately scrap the project, the two executives instead asked Jenkins if she would be open to reworking the script into something more apt to their vision for the IP’s future.
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 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 the studio’s new vision, 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.
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And while they supposedly had no hand in De Luca and Abdy’s rejection of her script, Jenkins reportedly refused to hear any 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,” The Wrap’s insider noted.
As of writing, neither Jenkins nor WBD have commented on The Wrap’s report.Further, though Jenkins’ WW3 is officially headed for Hades, WBD is reportedly both intent on continuing the franchise in some capacity and keeping Gal Gadot on in her role as the Amazonian warrior.
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