Patty Jenkins To Direct Wonder Woman Sequel

By Cori Burcham | September 21, 2017

After what was a scathing summer at the box office, Wonder Woman was the only film that seemed to escape without a scratch. Wonder Woman was the highest grossing superhero origin film of all time, and that was due, in large part, to the wondrous director, Patty Jenkins. According to Variety, Patty Jenkins will be back to do it all again, writing and directing the highly-anticipated sequel to Wonder Woman.

Although, it’s not surprising that Warner Bros. Pictures would choose Patty Jenkins to direct the sequel since the first Wonder Woman installment earned $410 million at the domestic box office and $813 million internationally. Wonder Woman was the fourth film created for the DC Extended Universe, which began back in

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2013 with Man of Steel, and was followed by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. On its opening weekend, Wonder Woman earned $103.1 million, which is now the highest-grossing opening weekend for a female director, surpassing Sam Taylor-Johnson for 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey.

While the exact figure was not disclosed, Patty Jenkins will receive around $8 million to write, direct, and produce the Wonder Woman sequel, making her the highest paid female director of all time. And with the additional box office earnings, the sequel will no doubt receive, Jenkins has a hefty paycheck coming her way, along with the possibility of an Oscar.

When Jenkins first started work on the box office hit, she set out to make a movie filmgoers would enjoy, but had no idea it would receive such high praise from critics and fans alike.

“On the one hand, I always believed that a good Wonder Woman movie could be so much more successful than people might have thought,” said Jenkins. “But the way that our particular film was embraced, not only as a Wonder Woman movie, has been so stunning and magical. For it to be a financial success and a cultural success has been pretty incredible.”

Although, not everyone was happy with the new adaptation of Wonder Woman, as director James Cameron made abundantly clear in an interview with The Guardian. The director stated that Wonder Woman was a “step backwards” for women and that his main lead Sarah Connor in Terminator was more of a positive, feminist icon than Diana Prince. He also suggested that Sarah Connor was a great female protagonist because she

is not “a beauty icon,” and that she was “strong” and “troubled,” suggesting that beauty and strength in female characters are mutually exclusive.

Patty Jenkins came to the defense of her film on Twitter, stating, “James Cameron’s inability to understand what Wonder Woman is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though, he is a great filmmaker, he is not a woman.”

Gal Gadot will return as Wonder Woman in the sequel, and according to Jenkins, she’ll be traveling overseas. While the first Wonder Woman was set in Europe, the sequel will take place in America. “I’m excited for her to come to America and become the Wonder Woman we are all familiar with from having grown up around her as an American superhero,” said the director.

Jenkins also spoke about the direction the story will take, stating, “I’d like to bring her a little farther along into the future and have a fun, exciting storyline that is its own thing. Wonder Woman 1 is so much about her becoming the person she is. I can’t wait to spring forward with who she is and have another great standalone superhero film.” Patty Jenkins will be writing the script for the Wonder Woman sequel along with Dave Callaham (The Expendables) and DC Entertainment president Geoff Johns.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a female superhero solo film created since Elektra, which was released back in 2005, and with the monetary success Wonder Woman had at the box office, hopefully there’ll be more female superhero movies to come.

The Wonder Woman sequel is set to be released on December 13th, 2019 and the first installment is now available to purchase on Blu-ray and DVD.

[Originally published on Styleft.com in September 2017]

https://styleft.com/patty-jenkins-will-direct-wonder-woman-sequel/