With Warner Bros. taking a greater interest in movies based on DC Comics' characters through the newly-created DC Entertainment division, confusion surrounds the status of the long-awaited Wonder Woman movie. What's going on with our favorite Amazon?
According to Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke, the creation of DC Entertainment involved the end of any involvement in a WW movie from producer Joel Silver - AKA, the man who told Joss Whedon that he wasn't right for the character:
[WB Pictures President, and boss of DC Entertainment president Diane Nelson, Jeff] Robinov for months has quietly gone to producers like Chuck Roven and Joel Silver and Akiva Goldman and "called back" all their high profile DC titles in development like The Flash and Wonder Woman. Not only was that shocking to the producers, but even more so when they found out this was part of Robinov's strategy to severely limit the number of gross participants on the projects. Because the producers were told that they may get the titles back to develop, but with far less rich deals. "Jeff always wanted some kind of oversight of DC, and now he wants Warner's to hold onto ownership," my insider explains. (My understanding is that Joel Silver, who is buddies with Robinov, was allowed to continue bringing low profile [DC property] The Losers to the big screen under his Dark Castle banner. But Silver's 10 years of developing Wonder Woman is history now.)
Robinov is, of course, the man who allegedly claimed that Warners wouldn't consider movies with female leads after their last three female-led movies bombed at the box office, which may impact any possible Wonder Woman project. According to current WW comic writer Gail Simone, however, DC Entertainment's creation puts the Amazon warrior princess in a very good place, cinematically:
I have received THREE letters today from big-time Hollywood insiders, and they ALL feel that this change at DC actually increases the odds of a WW film being made tenfold.
These people know what they're talking about. It's speculation, but it's INFORMED speculation. So it could be really GOOD news for WW fans. I'm just passing this along.
"Informed speculation," indeed - but with Joel Silver out of the picture and a new division eager to (in the words of new DC Entertainment prez Nelson) "incubate" DC Comics' IP, is it too much to hope that the character will get the attention she deserves... and maybe a callback for Joss Whedon's near-mythical take?