Wonder Woman (film)

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Wonder Woman

Directed by	TBA
Produced by	Joel Silver Leonard Goldberg
Written by	Comic Book: William Moulton Marston Elizabeth Holloway Marston
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	TBA
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Wonder Woman is an announced superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Wonder Woman. The film was originally intended to be written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Joel Silver, but Whedon left the project due to script differences. A new director and writer have yet to be determined for Wonder Woman.

[edit] Production

In January 2001, producer Joel Silver approached Todd Alcott to write the Wonder Woman screenplay with Silver Pictures backing the project.^[1] Early gossip included actresses such as Mariah Carey, Sandra Bullock, and Catherine Zeta-Jones for the role of Wonder Woman.^[2] Sandra Bullock was a strong candidate for the project, according to producer Leonard Goldberg in a May 2001 interview.^[3] The project did not take off for the time being, but instead went through various screenplay drafts written by Alcott, Jon Cohen, Becky Johnston, and Philip Levens.^[4] By August 2003, Levens was replaced by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis.^[5]

In March 2005, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures announced that Joss Whedon would write and direct the film adaptation of Wonder Woman,^[6] paying Whedon between $2 to $3 million to develop and write.^[7] Since Whedon was busy directing Serenity at the time, and still had to research Wonder Woman's background, the director did not begin writing the screenplay until late 2005.^[8] According to Joel Silver, the script would involve the origin of Wonder Woman and have the presence of the character Steve Trevor, explaining, "Trevor crashes on the island and they go back to Man's World."^[9] Silver expressed interest in having Wonder Woman filmed in Australia once the script was completed.^[10]

In November 2006, Joss Whedon explained the delay in developing a proper script for the film adaptation:

“

Besides her great origin story, there's nothing from the comics that felt right 100 percent, no iconic canon story that must be told. Batman has it made — he's got the greatest rogues gallery ever, he's got Gotham City. The Bat writes himself. With Wonder Woman, you're writing from whole cloth, but trying to make it feel like you didn't. To make it feel like it's existed for 60 years, even though you're making it up as you go along. But who she, and what the movie, is about, thematically, has never been a problem for me. But the steps along the way, it could be so easy for them to feel wrong. I won't settle. She wouldn't let me settle.^[11]

”

While Whedon stated in May 2005 that he would not cast Wonder Woman until he finished the script,^[12] several actresses expressed interest in the role of the superheroine. Actresses Charisma Carpenter,^[13] Morena Baccarin,^[14] and Sophia Bush^[15] had been open to the possibility of being cast as Wonder Woman. In February 2007, Whedon departed from the project due to script differences with the studio,^[16] and the director reiterated, "I never had an actress picked out, or even a consistant [sic] front-runner. I didn't have time to waste on casting when I was so busy air-balling on the script." Whedon said that with the project left behind, he would focus on making his film Goners.^[16]

A day before Whedon's departure from Wonder Woman in February 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures and Silver Pictures purchased a spec script written by Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland in order to prevent future legal action about similarities in the scripts. While producer Silver was not interested in making a period Wonder Woman, the spec script, set during World War II, had impressed executives at Silver Pictures.^[17] Silver bought it as he didn't want it floating around in the industry, and although he felt it had good ideas he didn't feel like producing a period piece.^[18]