Although the initial installments of Warner Bros.' DCEU certainly have their fans, the films weren't exactly the critical darlings which the studio was hoping for, but that all changed with the arrival of Patty Jenkins' WONDER WOMAN. The film helped to rejuvenate the DCEU and pave the way for new direction and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) will be returning in WONDER WOMAN 1984, which will push the Amazonian warrior into the 1980s, the era of unbridled capitalism, big hair, and sprawling malls.
While fans may be anxiously awaiting the release of WONDER WOMAN 1984, Patty Jenkins is already looking towards Wonder Woman's next adventure, but sadly, it may be the director's last time with the franchise. Jenkins recently spoke with German magazine Geek about what excited her to return for the sequel.
[Wonder Woman 1984] gave me a chance to do a lot of things that I couldn’t accommodate in the first movie. I was so happy to tell the Wonder Woman origin story. It was almost her birth, but we really haven’t seen what she is capable of. It is exciting for me to show her at the peak of her strength. But it is also very important that she fights an internal struggle: she is a Goddess and tries to help humanity. She is not only someone who fights evil, she tries to show bad people how to improve. It’s an interesting dilemma.
"The next one is probably my last Wonder Woman movie," Jenkins continued, "so I have to put everything I want to show there. We have to think carefully." From the sounds of things, WONDER WOMAN 3 could just be the character's biggest adventure yet.
Although we may be skipping over decades of Wonder Woman's life in WONDER WOMAN 1984, the character certainly hasn't been idle during that time as Gal Gadot teased earlier this year that Wonder Woman has majorly evolved.
The first movie was a coming of age, it was Diana becoming Wonder Woman. She was very naive and she didn’t understand the complexities of life. A fish out of water. In this movie, that’s not the case whatsoever. Diana has evolved. She’s much more mature and very wise. However, she’s very lonely. She lost all of her team members and she’s guarded. And then something crazy happens.
The "something crazy" which Gal Gadot refers to is likely the return of Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, who sacrificed his life at the end of the first film. While we still don't know just how Trevor has returned, Gadot said that the cast and crew were eager to have him back. "Chris was an integral part of the movie, and of its success, and because he and I and Patty really enjoyed working together, we all wanted to have him back," Gadot said. "And Patty and [co-writer] Geoff Johns found the best way that serves the narrative to bring Steve back." WONDER WOMAN 1984 is now slated for an October 2, 2020 release, but we'll have to wait and see if COVID-19 forces the release of the film to be pushed back once again.