Wonder Woman 3 is not happening, says an iconic DC star, and fans really only have themselves to blame.
This is an astonishing change from 2017, when the first Wonder Woman movie grossed $822 million at the global box office and transformed lead actress Gal Gadot from part of the Fast & Furious supporting cast to a legitimate marquee name. The movie followed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), which introduced Gadot as Princess Diana of Themyscira and was a crucial step in DC Film’s plans to hurriedly build a shared universe to compete with Marvel Studios.
Wonder Woman was directed by Patty Jenkins and, for a time, was the highest-grossing film by a solo female director; it has since been overtaken by Greta Gerwig for Barbie (2023). Still, it was a landmark film, one of the first superhero movies to center a female character, and a huge step forward for representation in the genre.
Then came Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), which had the misfortune to debut during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and received a simultaneous theatrical and streaming release widely perceived as disastrous. The film was mostly critically dismissed and seems to have soured Warner Bros. Discovery on both director Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman 3 as a concept.
In a recent interview with the Talking Pictures podcast, Patty Jenkins revealed that James Gunn and Peter Safran, the co-heads of the newly re-organized DC Studios, have no plans in Wonder Woman 3 or the character for the time being. She said, “They aren’t interested in doing any Wonder Woman for the time being. It’s not an easy task, with what’s going on with DC.”
The collapse of Zack Snyder‘s DC Extended Universe was drawn out and complicated even by Hollywood standards, but it’s still remarkable that DC Studios is willing to put one of its best-known characters on the sidelines just to try to compensate for the lingering fallout. Jenkins continued, saying, “James Gunn and Peter Safran have to follow their own heart into their own plans. I don’t know what they are planning on doing or why, so I have sympathy for what a big job it is, and they have to follow their heart and do what they’ve got planned.”
Now, another crucial figure in the DC mythos has spoken up to say that DC Studios is not moving forward with plans. Lynda Carter, the star of the 1970s live-action Wonder Woman series, told Yahoo Entertainment, “I don’t think they want to do it unless there’s enough pressure from fans. I just don’t think they have the mind to do it.”
The original Wonder Woman (who had a cameo in Wonder Woman 1984) seems to feel that it would require some kind of campaign from fans to get Wonder Woman 3 made, but given that James Gunn seems to have an extensive 10-year-plan for DC already in the works, it’s uncertain whether even public demand could change that. Carter continued, saying, “I don’t understand that because it seems to me that Wonder Woman is different from other characters. She’s not just a superhero. Her whole thing is about peaceful solutions. She’s not aggressive to be aggressive. It’s a different story. It’s about inner strength, outer strength. I don’t know why they tabled it because it’s a great franchise.”
Gal Gadot has previously said that she had been in discussions with James Gunn and Peter Safran regarding reprising the character in their new DC Universe, but all signs seem to indicate that Wonder Woman 3 just plain isn’t happening.
