Wonder Woman

[GeneChing]

...the truth is this Wonder Woman is a major sword hottie.

[GeneChing]

A dated interview, but surely one not to be overlooked here. I cross checked the original 2015 Inquisitor interview online that is cited as the primary source, but there was no mention of Kung Fu there.

Gal Gadot Worked On Jiu-Jitsu and Other Martial Arts To Portray Wonder Woman
Apr 17, 2017Iva Djokovic



Wonder woman movie is set to be released June 2nd 2017. But with it come several surprises, Gadot as a part of the DC Comics universe had the pleasure to star alongside several famous fans of bjj so it’s no surprise she opted for some bjj classes when she was cast as the bad a*s hero of female empowerment.

“I work out a lot now with Wonder Woman [Gadot is playing the superhero in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, out in 2016]. I can’t say too much about my training regime but we do work out a lot—we do a lot of different martial arts. But in my ordinary life when I don’t work, I like to paddle board and do TRX.” Gadot told inquisitor.

Gadot later added:
“It’s the physical preparations that I’m starting now. A very serious training regimen – Kung Fu, kickboxing, swords, jujutsu, Brazilian…1,000 and 1 things…I’ll gain body mass…Wonder Woman is amazonian, and historically accurate Amazonian women actually had only one breast. So, if I’d really go ‘by the book’…it’d be problematic.”.”

Of course Gadot is no stranger to martial arts – she spent two years in the Israel Defense Forces.
“My mom is a gymnastics teacher. So growing up I was never sitting watching TV in the afternoons. I always played ball outside in the backyard. I was a dancer for 12 years. I did tennis, basketball, volleyball, dodgeball, you name it,” she said. “[In the IDF] I was a gym trainer on one of the bases in Israel. So my boot camp was longer than other boot camps. It was four months and all about sports, waking up at 6:30 a.m. and going for a run, doing push-ups…”

Gadot was also friends with the late Paul Walker thanks to her role in Fast and Furious 6 – Walker was one of the biggest ambassadors of jiu-jitsu prior to his tragic passing.

Gal is not just credited with smashing beauty, she also possess immense inner strength. Her background of being a part of Israeli Military shows that she is a real tough woman. Not being alien to vigorous workouts, Gal shares that one of the reasons why she has been chosen for the role is her insight about the use of diverse weapons. The smashing beauty who is all resolved to give her hundred percent to the role is embracing really intense workouts such as kickboxing, martial arts, kung fu, sword fighting, Jiu-Jitsu etc.



Growing up “very Jewish” in suburban Tel Aviv, the teenaged Gadot was tall, sporty and strong. “My mother was a PE teacher so I grew up playing volleyball, tennis, basketball … I was a high jumper,” she says. “I was very, very active. I danced for 12 years – ballet, hip-hop and jazz – I thought I might be a choreographer. I never planned on being an actress. Life just happened that way.”

[GeneChing]

Lynda, Teri & Melissa.

I went to High School with Teri.

[GeneChing]

4 Wonder Woman Projects That Never Took Off
6:00 AM 5/31/2017 by Tatiana Siegel

Before Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot brought Diana Prince to the big screen, scores of others tried and failed.



Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Megan Fox, Christina Hendricks, Beyonce Knowles — at one point or another, they were all rumored to be filling Wonder Woman's boots. Indeed, Hollywood has been promising for decades to make a movie about the Amazonian princess in the red, yellow and blue bathing suit, with many of the town's top leading ladies vying for the title role. But, until now, Wonder Woman remained as invisible as her plane. Here's a look back at some of her most notable failed launches.

Joss Whedon's Anti-Corporation Wonder Woman
Joss Whedon reportedly earned $2 million to $3 million for a 2005 Wonder Woman script for Joel Silver. Its plot, Whedon later revealed, was "about how giant conglomerates are eating the world and how we are all puppets underneath them — maybe that's what [Warner Bros.] didn't like about it." It never got to the casting stage, although Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Charisma Carpenter was considered a possibility. Whedon was adamant that the character get a change of wardrobe. "In my version, she had an outfit that was more classically Greek in the warrior sense — she wasn't going to be wearing an American flag."

Wonder Woman's Daughter
Before Whedon, Silver had gone through a half-dozen other screenwriters with contemporary storylines, including one about Wonder Woman's daughter, Donna Troy, before hiring Laeta Kalogridis (co-writer of Oliver Stone's Alexander) in 2003. Her script went back to basics. "The island, the Amazons, chicks kicking butt," she described it. It churned through the studio for a few years, never getting much traction.

Wonder Woman vs. Superman?
Wonder Woman had a major role in Warner Bros.' original 2007 Justice League project, written by husband-and-wife team Kieran and Michele Mulroney (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows), including a rock 'em, sock 'em midair fistfight with a hypnotized Superman. After he lands a shattering blow, sending Wonder Woman jackknifing into outer space, the Man of Steel delivers his parting words, "Die … ***** …!"

Wonder Woman on NBC
David E. Kelley wrote a Wonder Woman pilot for NBC that was shot in 2011. It starred Adrianne Palicki as Diana Themyscira, who not only fought crime in contemporary Los Angeles but also was CEO of her own large corporation. Despite a cameo by Alan Dershowitz arguing against Wonder Woman's extrajudicial reach ("I don't remember anything in the United States Constitution that says a woman in a costume is exempt from the Bill of Rights …"), the pilot never made it on the air.

I was hoping for a screener invite, but no. Wonder Woman stood me up.

[GeneChing]

Wonder Woman's sword forged by my cast mates on MAN AT ARMS: ART OF WAR.

[GeneChing]

Domestic: $100,505,000 45.1%
+ Foreign: $122,500,000 54.9%
= Worldwide: $223,005,000

BOM

The Complex Gender Politics of the 'Wonder Woman' Movie
by Tatiana Siegel May 31, 2017, 6:00am PDT

Can Patty Jenkins make the superhero world safe for female directors? Warner Bros. gambles $150 million on its first woman-centered comic book movie with a filmmaker whose only prior big-screen credit was an $8 million indie: "I can't take on the history of 50 percent of the population just because I'm a woman."
Patty Jenkins is sipping some sort of healthy soup-like sludge at a restaurant in Burbank called Olive & Thyme. Dressed in black jeans and a white tank top, with a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on her forehead to keep her straight black hair from falling into her brown eyes, she looks like a grad student taking a break between classes. You'd never guess that this petite woman drinking green gunk is actually the most important female film director in the business today. She doesn't think so, of course.
"I can't take on the history of 50 percent of the population just because I'm a woman," says Jenkins, bristling when asked about the heavy responsibility of directing Wonder Woman, the most expensive film ever shot by a person with two XX chromosomes (its $150 million budget surpasses Kathryn Bigelow's $100 million K-19: The Widowmaker). "I'm just trying to make the greatest version of Wonder Woman that I can for the people who love the character as much as I do and hope that the movie lives up to all the pressure that's on it."

And that pressure is superhuman, to be sure. When the biggest female-centered comic book movie ever premiered at the Pantages Theatre in L.A. on May 25 (it goes wide June 2), it was Jenkins' name leading the credits. That would be nerve-wracking enough even for a director with lots of experience working on big-budget superhero movies. But aside from the pilot of AMC's The Killing and occasional gigs on other high-profile TV shows — shooting episodes of Arrested Development and a couple for Entourage — Jenkins' biggest accomplishment (indeed, her only big-screen feature) was 2003's Monster, the indie drama about a female serial killer that earned critical raves and Charlize Theron a best actress Oscar.

Hiring Jenkins, 45 — who had come close to directing a superhero movie before, the 2013 Thor sequel, but ended up backing out — was obviously a big gamble for Warner Bros., a studio that has been having creative if not necessarily financial issues with its superhero franchise films ever since the Dark Knight trilogy. But her taking the helm of Wonder Woman is also a big deal for pretty much every female director in Hollywood with tentpole ambitions. If Wonder Woman is a hit, then doors that have been kept shut for decades could potentially swing open (they are already, at least a crack, with Gina Prince-Bythewood just getting hired to direct Sony's Spider-Man spinoff Silver & Black). If, on the other hand, Wonder Woman turns out to be another Catwoman, the superhero universe could remain a boys club for eons to come.

"That's the challenge — how to tell a story of a woman and make it universal," says Gal Gadot, the 32-year-old Israeli actress who stars as the Amazonian princess with bullet-deflecting bracelets. "We are all used to having male protagonists in movies [directed by men]. But the way Patty has captured the Wonder Woman character, she is very relatable to everyone. Boy, girl, man, woman — everyone can relate to her."


Photographed by Miller Mobley
"Wonder Woman can be charming and warm — she just happens to be a demigoddess who can beat the **** out of you," says Gadot.
•••

Jenkins grew up in California. And Thailand. And Kansas. And Germany. Her dad was an Air Force captain (who won a Silver Star in Vietnam) and her mom an environmental scientist; and Patricia Lea, as she was christened, spent most of her childhood moving from one air base to another. As far as she's concerned, it was the perfect training for a future career in filmmaking. "To be a director, you need to be reliable, on time, confident, calm, all of those things you see demonstrated in the military," she notes.

As a kid, she'd always been interested in storytelling and visual arts. Her first job in movies was during junior high, when she was a production assistant on a documentary directed by a friend of her mother's. She ended up studying painting at Cooper Union in New York, where she took a course in experimental filmmaking, and after graduation spent nine years in New York learning filmmaking by working on "literally thousands" of commercials and music videos until she moved to L.A. and enrolled at AFI for directing.
After AFI, she made a couple of shorts of her own, which she used to raise money ($8 million) for her first feature. It was at this point that she first demonstrated a talent for making unexpected but fortuitous choices: She cast Theron, then considered more of a pin-up than a serious actress, as the film's lead, the decidedly unsexy serial killer Aileen Wuornos. "I said to her, 'You know, you're absolutely f—ing crazy,' " remembers Theron of her conversation with Jenkins over her casting. "Nobody else would have done that. It was very, very unusual. She looked at me in a way that nobody has ever looked at me."


Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
Jenkins (left) with Gadot on the Italy set of Warner Bros.' $150 million Wonder Woman.

The film became such a breakout success that dream opportunities began falling into Jenkins' lap. Famed test pilot Chuck Yeager approached her to make a movie about his life story, but she opted to develop it independently rather than at a studio, and it eventually fell apart. Then she was set to team with Ryan Gosling on an indie drama titled I Am Superman (no relation to the DC Universe). But she got pregnant with her now-8-year-old son (she's married to travel writer Sam Sheridan; the three live in Santa Monica, where Jon Favreau is a neighbor), and it got put on hold (she still plans to make the movie with Gosling). Instead, she started directing TV shows — a much less time-consuming job for a new mom — including that pilot for The Killing, which drew critical raves and earned Jenkins an Emmy nomination.

At one point, Jenkins was attached to direct Marvel's Thor: The Dark World, the critical misfire that Alan Taylor wound up shooting after Jenkins left the project (it ended up grossing $645 million worldwide). She won't say what transpired with that film but will talk more generally about a certain unnamed tentpole that she ultimately walked away from (rhymes with "s'more"). "There have been things that have crossed my path that seemed like troubled projects," she says. "And I thought, 'If I take this, it'll be a big disservice to women. If I take this knowing it's going to be trouble and then it looks like it was me, that's going to be a problem. If they do it with a man, it will just be yet another mistake that the studio made. But with me, it's going to look like I dropped the ball, and it's going to send a very bad message.' So I've been very careful about what I take for that reason."


Photographed by Miller Mobley
"I can't take on the history of 50 percent of the population just because I'm a woman," says Jenkins.

The problem is that tentpole opportunities for women — or any movie directing jobs, for that matter — are still pretty rare … and getting rarer. Despite an increased spotlight on diversity and inclusion, female filmmakers actually lost ground in 2016. Women made up just 7 percent of all directors on the top 250 films, a 2 percent decline from 2015, according to San Diego State University's Celluloid Ceiling report. That downward trajectory puzzles Jenkins. "I'm sure there's a long history of belief that certain jobs are masculine," says Jenkins. "But why a director would fall into that [category] makes me very confused. Because it feels like a very natural job for a woman. It's incredibly maternal in a way. You're caretaking all of these sorts of things."

But around the same time Marvel was making its sequel about the Norse god with the big hammer, Warner Bros. was trying to figure out what to do with its greatest untapped superhero resource. The studio had been toying with the idea of making a big-screen Wonder Woman for decades, with producer Joel Silver going through at least a half-dozen screenwriters (including Joss Whedon) looking for a greenlight-able script (until Silver was relieved of the brand when Diane Nelson was named entertainment president and tasked with shaking up the studio's comic book development). At one point in 2010, there was an effort to bring Wonder Woman back to TV for the first time since Lynda Carter wore the tiara on ABC in the 1970s, with David E. Kelley writing a pilot for NBC. But that never panned out either.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Courtesy of Everett Collection
Lynda Carter on ABC's 1970s TV show.

Jenkins herself came to the Warners lot and pitched her version of a Wonder Woman feature back in 2010. She wanted to make it an origin story set against the backdrop of World War I, beginning with Princess Diana of Themyscira at age 7. But the studio hired another female director, Game of Thrones helmer Michelle MacLaren, who had a different vision — one that turned out to clash with the studio's. "We parted ways over just never being able to agree on the direction we wanted to take the material," says producer Charles Roven of MacLaren's departure from the project. But even before MacLaren left, Roven made sure his daughter, executive producer Rebecca Roven, stayed in contact with Jenkins, "just in case there was a reason that it wasn't going to work out with Michelle." And in 2015, Warner Bros. finally agreed to let Jenkins make her Wonder Woman period piece.

•••

As is so often the case with superheroes, this one arrives just in the nick of time, or so at least Warner Bros. hopes. The studio's past three DC Comics adaptations — Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad — have all made respectable money but also have been disappointments to fans and critics alike (Gadot's debut as Wonder Woman in 2016's Batman v. Superman was about the only bit of that film hailed by reviewers). The studio undoubtedly had concerns about hinging the fate of a priceless superhero brand on a director with no big-screen action experience to her credit. But few female directors outside of Bigelow do, and Warners was committed to hiring a woman, or so it was widely reported. "That was important," admits Roven. "But it wasn't critical."


Photographed by Miller Mobley
Gadot made her debut as Wonder Woman in 2016's Batman v. Superman.

To Jenkins, though, all budgets are created equal. "My last two TV pilots — Exposed and Betrayal — were over $10 million each," she says. "But you only shoot for eight or 10 days, so it's actually the same budget per day as what I was working on with Wonder Woman. Obviously, Wonder Woman is a bigger budget expanded throughout, but I feel like every experience I've had has been exactly the same from my short film to Wonder Woman, which is, you have 20 percent too little money for what you're trying to do."

And as far as Gadot is concerned, Jenkins would have gotten the job even if she'd been a man. "It might translate to some people that the only reason they took Patty for the job was because she is a woman," she says. "Honestly, they took her for the job because she was the right person to deliver the movie with a similar vision to theirs."

That vision — crafted with screenwriter Allan Heinberg — is what one might describe as a postfeminist Wonder Woman. Jenkins says she strove to temper the character's traditional strength with vulnerability, pointing to Richard Donner's original 1978 Superman as one of her inspirations ("It wouldn't mean as much when he saves Lois Lane if you hadn't gone on that journey with him as a little baby being sent to Earth …"). But it's also clear there's more than a little piece of herself under Wonder Woman's armored bodice. "I have an aggressive streak of my own," admits Jenkins. "I grew up in a family of fighter pilots, and I have a real kindred spirit to that kind of fast-moving aggression and momentum." (Not surprisingly, her two favorite non-work, non-mom pastimes are skiing and speed skating).


Courtesy of DC Comics
The character's first comic book in 1942.

"Credit Patty for not turning [Wonder Woman] into a ballbuster," says Gadot, a onetime Israel Defense Forces soldier turned model turned actress (before Wonder Woman, she co-starred in four of the Fast and Furious films). "Wonder Woman can be very charming and warm and have so much compassion and love for the world. She can be soft and naive. At the same time, she just happens to be this demigoddess who can beat the **** out of you and can be a super badass and smart and confident. Ultimately, she's very relatable."

Theron puts it slightly differently. "Patty loves conflicted women," she says. "She believes women are more conflicted than men, and she tells her stories very much through that eye. That's why you can't take your eyes off her girls because they're showing you something maybe you haven't seen before."

From left: Gadot, Jenkins and Chris Pine on the set of <em>Wonder Woman</em>.
Courtesy of Warner Brothers
From left: Gadot, Jenkins and Chris Pine on the set of Wonder Woman.
When she's on set, Jenkins can be a pretty exacting boss, both physically and psychologically. "The shoots were so intensive, six days a week for six months," recalls Gadot. "But what Patty really cared about most was the emotional fate of a fight because we'd do the drills and the choreography, and you can have them down technically, but if the emotion is not specific, then Patty would say, 'It's not going to translate as well. Let's do it again.' "

Theron has similar memories of working with Jenkins on Monster, recalling a 14-hour day shooting a scene in which her character kills a man execution-style. "I'm not lying. I think I did that scene 50 times — if not more," she says. "By the end of it, I was literally lying facedown in that grass being so exhausted. And she wouldn't stop. And I'm grateful for that. You want somebody to push you further than you can push yourself. A lot of directors don't know how to do that, and Patty is very, very good at that."

•••

On the eve of Wonder Woman's release, box-office omens look promising (even if a London premiere had to be canceled after the May 22 terrorist attack in Manchester). Tracking for the film predicts its opening weekend at a very respectable $87 million, although judging by early word-of-mouth, that could end up being a conservative estimate (reviews have been overwhelmingly positive — "Offers a welcome change of pace from a superhero realm that's often overloaded with interconnections and cross-references," says THR — with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 96 percent fresh rating.) Curiously, tracking also indicates that the film is appealing more to fanboys than fangirls, although producer Deborah Snyder insists "the marketing push is to get everyone" and that female audiences "want to see a strong, empowered woman kicking ass." Roven looks at numbers the same way. "I actually think that with the pressure comes an opportunity," he says. "Historically, audiences in this genre are male — 60 to 40 percent — but if you can really tap the market and maintain the males and actually add a significantly greater female audience, it's a great win-win. You've accomplished something that hasn't really ever been accomplished before."


Courtesy of Warner Brothers Entertainment
"We love how fresh and timely it feels to be coming out with a kick-ass female superhero movie right now, giving a lesson in some serious female empowerment," says Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer at Warners.


In other words, the big question mark hanging over Wonder Woman isn't whether a female director can make a successful superhero event movie; it's whether a female superhero can upend that long-standing formula and do something that the male ones haven't accomplished: expand the female base. And at this point, there's no reason to suspect Wonder Woman can't. After all, not all female superhero movies have to go the way of such bombs as Catwoman (or Elektra or Aeon Flux), just as not all male superhero movies go the way of Green Lantern. And if it all goes according to plan, Jenkins is more than ready to return to the character for a contemporary-set Wonder Woman sequel (she and Gadot are contractually committed to a second film). Not that Jenkins wants to limit herself just to tentpoles. She's also hoping to squeeze in a limited TV series based on something her husband wrote — maybe starring Chris Pine, who plays Lyle Waggoner's old role, Steve Trevor, in Wonder Woman — before returning (fingers crossed) to Paradise Island for another go.

"What I never want to do is start phoning it in and making things just to show that I can keep my foot in the door and do big movies," says Jenkins, scraping the last bits of gunk from the bottom of her soup bowl. "I don't care about that at all. I just want to make great movies. And that could come from any direction. It might be a $10 million movie or it might be $200 million movie."


Miller Mobley
This story first appeared in the May 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Surely someone here saw this over the weekend. Who's got that first forum review?

[GeneChing]

Nice story on Gal's stunt double.

Stunt double Caitlin Dechelle on 'Wonder Woman' and her real-life superpowers
By Katie Barnes | Jun 2, 2017
espnW.com


Courtesy of Caitlin Dechelle
Caitlin Dechelle has black belts in three martial arts disciplines and doubles Gal Gadot in "Wonder Woman."
Caitlin Dechelle fights for a living.

She doesn't suit up and step into the Octagon, or put on gloves and get into a ring. She slides on shields, thrusts people off towers and wields swords. As the lead stunt woman for the Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment's Justice League film "Wonder Woman," which comes out on Friday, Dechelle may qualify as a real-life superhero herself.

Behind Gal Gadot's portrayal of Diana Prince -- the Amazonian warrior who is also Wonder Woman -- is Dechelle. She's punching, kicking and, yes, leaping through the air. She doubles Gadot and was selected specifically for her fighting proficiency.

"Fighting is my thing and what I'm hired for 99 percent of the time," Dechelle, 26, said in a phone interview.

For the Patty Jenkins-directed "Wonder Woman" film, Dechelle spent eight months (seven in London, and one in Italy) on location shooting, which gave her plenty of time to get to know the woman she was doubling.

Dechelle had nothing but kind things to say about Gadot, who certainly held her own regarding action scenes and fitness. When their shooting overlapped, Dechelle stood off-camera, coaching Gadot through footwork and her portion of the stunts. "She picked up quite well," Dechelle said. "Obviously, anytime you do something you've never done, it's tough, but [Gadot] had such a willingness to learn and was always upbeat."

Dechelle has been honing her superpowers since she was 6 years old, which is when she started taking martial arts. Her two decades of training have led her to black belts in three disciplines: Chinese Kenpo, Japanese Goju-Ryu and taekwondo. All of which proved quite helpful for many of her film projects.

"I was trained to be like the boys, if not better," Dechelle said. "People say that men can do it better, but that's not true. This film portrays that."

However, pro fighting didn't seem like a long-term career option. After high school, Dechelle enrolled at the University of Central Florida as a biology major with the goal of becoming an orthodontist. At the time, she was still participating in martial arts competitions but knew that that road would eventually end. But she wasn't quite ready to hang it up.

"I loved school and was always a straight-A student," Dechelle said. "But martial arts had been my life, so I wanted to somehow transfer that from the competing world into the [entertainment] industry -- still doing what I love, just in a different fashion."


Courtesy of Caitlin Dechelle
Dechelle spent nearly 20 years training in several martial arts before pursuing a career in Hollywood.

However, applying martial arts to stunts is a bit different than competing. Dechelle's stylistic background was in disciplines that preferred straight punches and clean lines.

"I had to learn how to 'dirty up' my fighting," she said.

And, there's a camera. Shooting a fight scene requires an extreme attention to detail that is not always at the forefront of athletic competition. Moving a hand a half-inch might not matter in traditional sparring, but it does on film. Additionally, the actors and stunt performers have to understand camera angles so that the illusion of a strike is present.

"Everyone thinks we're hitting each other, but we're not," she said. "We make sure we're not hitting the actor in the face."

Dechelle's first gig was a David LaChapelle-directed Comcast commercial in 2010, in which she served as the principal martial artist. After that, her career started exploding. She did stunt work for the Jackie Chan-directed 2012 film "Chinese Zodiac" and even worked as Ronda Rousey's stunt double in the "Fast & Furious 7" in 2015.

With her career on the upswing, Dechelle practically lives in the gym. Even when she's working, Dechelle typically arrives on set before her rehearsal call time to fit in 30 minutes of cardio. After rehearsal, she works outs with a trainer for about 90 minutes to two hours. Afterward, she might add a round of weights.

Dechelle also enjoys instructing. She started teaching martial arts when she was 16 and still conducts private lessons and seminars. She thinks about her students when considering the importance of "Wonder Woman" and the imagery of female superheroes. It's not just about how good Dechelle personally is with a sword. It's the impact her work has on the viewers.

"Having such strong women attached [to] this [film], I just think it's going to be fantastic."

Katie Barnes is a writer/reporter for espnW. Follow them on Twitter at Katie_Barnes3.

[GeneChing]

I'll copy this into its own indie thread when the project gets more solid.

JUNE 07, 2017 5:55am PT by Borys Kit
'Wonder Woman' Director Patty Jenkins Not Signed for Sequel
Sources say Warner Bros. will soon begin negotiations with Jenkins, who will have major leverage thanks to the movie's historic opening weekend.


Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
'Wonder Woman'

Sources say Warner Bros. will soon begin negotiations with Jenkins, who will have major leverage thanks to the movie's historic opening weekend.
A $103.2 million domestic opening usually means a sequel is a no-brainer — but director Patty Jenkins has yet to sign on the dotted line for a Wonder Woman follow-up.

While star Gal Gadot has an option in place for Wonder Woman 2 as part of her overall deal to appear in several DC movies, Warner Bros. executives enlisted Jenkins for just one film, a decision that could end up costing the studio millions of dollars if Jenkins' reps drive a hard bargain for her to return.

At the time she was hired, Jenkins had directed just one movie, her 2003 feature debut Monster, and she was taking over the long-gestating project from Michelle MacLaren, who left over creative differences. A one-picture-only deal is said to be standard practice at Warner Bros. for directors taking on a big-budget studio film for the first time.

Warners execs also may have been a bit unprepared for the level of success and acclaim Wonder Woman has achieved; initial tracking reports predicted Jenkins' $150 million-budgeted film would open to about $65 million domestic, solid but hardly a reason to begin planning a long-range strategy. And the studio had been focusing on putting together Justice League Dark, a supernatural team-up project, and Batgirl, a Joss Whedon-helmed film (among other Bat-offerings), as the likely next movies to go into production in the DC Comics universe.

Patty Jenkins (left) and Gal Gadot were photographed May 8 at Milk Studios in Los Angeles.
READ MORE
The Complex Gender Politics of the 'Wonder Woman' Movie
Also a factor in not locking in Jenkins is the studio's more filmmaker-centric approach to its DC slate, where installments are not fait accompli; 2013’s Man of Steel, for example, still doesn’t have a direct sequel despite grossing more than $668 million worldwide.

Some insiders say it was only in recent weeks that Wonder Woman buzz began to grow on the Warners lot in Burbank, so the studio wanted to wait for the opening weekend results before initiating any negotiations. This strategy is a shift from the tactic under previous regimes, which got to work on sequels early. Warners famously greenlighted a sequel to The Hangover two months before the first film was released.

Sources say the studio intends to begin negotiations with Jenkins shortly (although the exact timing is unclear), and the filmmaker and her reps at CAA, Anonymous Content and Jackoway Tyerman will enjoy enormous leverage. Jenkins could not only return to the director's chair on Wonder Woman 2 but also could ink a more expansive deal that would allow her to work with DC Entertainment president and chief creative officer Geoff Johns on a script treatment for that movie and possibly others as well.

None of us have seen Wonder Woman yet? No forum reviews? srsly?

[sanjuro_ronin]

As a matter of fact...
Saw it on Monday.
Probably one of he best movies I have seen in a long time.
Thoroughly enjoyed every part of it.
My wife said it was the bets superhero movie she has seen and one of the best, period.
My girls loved it, they loved the kick assery and they loved the story and they loved Gal as Diana and Wonder Woman.
Chris Pine was great, as always, and the supporting cast were all very good.
There was no weakness in the movie at all really.
Personally I would like Gal to add about 10LBS but that's just me.
She sold the action and sold the acting, 100%

Wonder Woman is what all true feminist should strive for:
Strong, independent, loving, compassionate, doesn't ask for special favors or treatment, she simply DOES what NEEDS to be done because she CAN.

A role model for young women.

Again, loved it.

[Jimbo]

I agree with SR's post 100%.

This is the best movie I've seen so far this year. 2017 has been the year for superhero movie "bests". My previous favorites were Dr. Strange and Logan. But IMO, Wonder Woman has both of them beat by a long shot. It's just at a whole other level, IMO. And this is from a dyed-in-the-wool Marvel fan. The director, the actors, the storyline, etc., just work together perfectly. Gal Gadot is the best choice...the only choice...to play WW.

Wonder Woman was always secretly my favorite DC superhero/heroine, and not for the reasons someone might think. I've always felt there was an undefinable potential to WW that was never quite realized, either in the comics or on the small screen. I've always found Superman to be bland; even Batman, not to mention Aquaman. But there was always something more to WW, and now this movie has unleashed her potential beyond anything I could have ever imagined. WW is not just a great superhero movie, but a great movie, period.

Also saw the Justice League trailer. I'm not sure how Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman will be able to share the screen with WW, but I'll go see it for her.

[GeneChing]

Wow, s_r & J both WW the big thumbs up. It's got to be good.

This strikes me as really funny because I hate the ol' sword-over-the-back thing. How to you re-sheath that? But who am I to critique sword hottie fashion? There are more pix - I only posted a few.

Women Are Trying Out Wonder Woman's Sword Trick, And It Works!
by Amanda Adame | 5 days ago

It seems women around the world have really connected with the girl power in the hit film Wonder Woman. Some women are even trying out the Amazonian skills in the flick, like hiding a sword beneath their dresses to channel fearsome vibes.


(via Hello Giggles)

Viewers wondered if Diana's sword trick in the film was plausible in real life, so one girl set out to discover how realistic it actually was. When pressed by a friend, Eva Wei shoved a one-handed regenyei down her sheer chiffon dress, and the results were quite surprising!

As she explains in her Facebook post, Eva put the slick trick to the test and found out she could walk and even dance with the sword in her dress.

Eva Wei
June 7 ·



So, Anna-Karin asked if the sword in dress-scene from Wonder Woman was plausible. I promised to give it a serious try, so I took my regenyei onehander and shoved it down my sheer chiffon dress. It worked.. surprisingly well. The sword sits pretty decent and I can walk and dance in it without that much of a fuss. I also think it could be drawable if it was just 10 cm shorter (which I estimate WW's sword to be) so that also kind of works. So the verdict is that the scene is actually surprisingly plausible.

EDIT: Apparently, this is a thing now. Grab a dress and your weapon of choice and tag #WWgotyourback and let me see all your marvellous creations <3

In the course of just one day, this has suddenly become a thing and women all over are putting weapons underneath their gowns and sharing the results under the hashtag #WWgotyourback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Check out a selection of the images below for an instant dose of girl power:

[sanjuro_ronin]

She quite obviously held it in place with those magnificent amazonian gluts.
Then, by manipulation of said gluts, the sword "shoots" out into her hand, ready for action ( slice, dice, circumcision, etc)

[GeneChing]

Now Wonder Woman 2 has it's own separate thread from the original Wonder Woman thread.

The 80s were awesome.

Wonder Woman 2 Set in 1980s, Chris Pine Returning?
By Andrew Dyce 07.10.2017 112 Comments

WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS for Wonder Woman

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As Wonder Woman‘s box office success continues to build, it sounds like it may carry her straight into the 1980s for Wonder Woman 2 – with her leading man returning, despite Steve Trevor’s fate. DC Films has been careful not to shift attention away from the DCEU’s runaway success and towards a sequel too soon, with director Patty Jenkins not yet officially returning, even as a a story treatment for the inevitable Wonder Woman 2 begins to take shape. A shape we may now know, at least in terms of setting.

The current timeline of the DCEU made fans question whether Wonder Woman 2 is tied to Justice League‘s fallout (as is the case with Jason Momoa’s Aquaman solo film), or tell another period story set between Diana’s origin and her Batman V Superman debut. Thanks to some new information, it seems that question can be answered, along with the villains Wonder Woman 2 will introduce decades before Steppenwolf ever challenged the DCEU’s Justice League.

According to production details Screen Rant has learned, the story of Wonder Woman 2 will be another historical adventure prior to the modern day DCEU. Set during the 1980s, the film will send Diana against the forces of Soviet Union in the closing days of the Cold War. The production team is expected to remain on board for the sequel, with confirmation that Geoff Johns is developing Wonder Woman 2‘s script with Jenkins (who is still in negotiations, with all evidence and word of mouth pointing to her return once the contracts are signed).

As fans use their imagination to picture the sequel – swapping out the battlefields of World War I for the espionage and maneuverings of Moscow – the last detail may be the biggest relief. The report also confirms that Chris Pine will be returning, once again acting as Diana’s ally Steve Trevor. Exactly how that’s possible given the conclusion of his story in Wonder Woman… may be the real question moving forward.



From a marketing standpoint, the decisions all make complete sense. Across the critical and commercial acclaim heaped on Jenkins’s film, the chemistry between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine was one of the most praised aspects – tinged with the fact that one glimpse may be all audiences ever get. On one hand, the winning combination of Steve Trevor and Diana makes his sacrifice in the movie’s final act all the more meaningful for Diana’s character in BvS and beyond. On the other… it’s the kind of formula movie studios tend to pursue at all costs, even ones in less critical hot water than DC Films.

The same line of thinking may be to thank for the decision to tell another story set prior to Diana’s introduction into BvS and the Justice League. The cynics will claim it’s an effort to keep Diana somewhat removed from everything we know about Zack Snyder’s Justice League (despite his role in shaping Wonder Woman with Jenkins), and allow Jenkins and Johns the freedom to tell whatever story she wishes. Taking a step back, though, it seems the smartest move all around. Jenkins has already explained how the Batman V Superman claim that Wonder Woman “walked away from mankind” can mean more than fans inferred, opening doors to any number of compelling stories set in the 20th Century.

With Justice League telling the next chapter of Diana’s story alongside DC’s younger heroes, why not have the cake and eat it, too – filling in the exciting years when Diana was Earth’s only living superhero? And considering the comparisons to Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger the first time around, shifting the next film to World War II would only exacerbate the potential problems. Diana can still comment on the war and its role in shaping the Cold War that followed, after all.

Fans won’t need to be convinced that seeing Diana during the 1980s would be worth the price of admission alone, but the promise of another pairing with Pine (whether a resurrected version, or a descendant of Steve Trevor) should seal the deal. Since Jenkins has stated her feelings that Wonder Woman 2 should be set in America, the heroes may be forced to swap No Man’s Land for a Cold War spy thriller – and who would complain?

Let us know what you think of a 1980s setting for Wonder Woman 2, and whether Steve Trevor’s return is the right move – no matter how the filmmakers explain it.

[GeneChing]

AUGUST 08, 2017 8:41am PT by Pamela McClintock
Box-Office Milestone: 'Wonder Woman' Crosses $400M in North America

The femme-centric superhero film has defied all expectations since debuting in early June.
Wonder Woman muscled past the $400 million mark Tuesday at the domestic box office — an increasingly difficult feat for any film to achieve in North America.

Directed by Patty Jenkins, the summer hit is a major, and much needed, victory for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe of superhero films.

The femme-centric superhero tentpole, starring Gal Gadot, has smashed a number of records since first hitting theaters in early June, including becoming the top-grossing live-action film of all time from a female helmer, with more than $795 million in global grosses.

More recently, Wonder Woman became the top grossing title of summer 2017 in North America and the No. 2 film of the year domestically behind another female-led movie, Disney's Beauty and the Beast ($504 million).

While certainly no slouch, Wonder Wonder hasn't been as big overseas in comparison to its domestic strength. To date, it is the No. 5 title of the year on a global basis behind Beauty ($1.26 billion), The Fate of the Furious ($1.24 billion), Despicable Me 3 ($881.5 million) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($861.4 million).

In North America, Wonder Woman has enjoyed the best hold of any superhero in decades, or 3.8 times its opening gross of $103.3 million, besting the first Spider-Man in 2002. Gadot stars opposite Chris Pine in the tentpole.

Regarding where it ranks on the chart of superhero films, Wonder Woman is the No. 8 comic book adaptation of all time domestically, not accounting for inflation. And if it can pass up the $403.7 million grossed by Spider-Man in 2002, it will rest at No. 7. Marvel's The Avengers is the record holder with $623.4 million, followed by The Dark Knight ($534.9 million). Otherwise, no superhero movie has scaled the $500 million threshold.

And Wonder Woman is Warner Bros.' third-biggest movie domestically behind The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises ($448.1 million) after passing up the final Harry Potter film ($381 million), American Sniper ($350.1 million) and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice ($330.4 million), again not adjusting for inflation.

“When Wonder Woman opened to such a terrific number in June, we thought, ‘This is truly a moment' — for the film, for our industry, for director Patty Jenkins and, of course, for Gal Gadot," stated Sue Kroll, president of worldwide marketing and distribution at Warner Bros. "Now, more than two months later, Wonder Woman has become a phenomenon, the must-see movie of the summer. Audiences have embraced this character and her story in such a spectacular fashion, and we couldn’t be happier for everyone involved in bringing this incredible property to life and to cinemas across the country."

Gadot is returning for a Wonder Woman sequel, which has received a release date of Dec. 13, 2019. Talks with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins are ongoing, although her involvement in the sequel hasn't been officially announced.

Didn't realize Beauty & the Beast did that well.