DC/Warners bosses confirm Wonder Woman 2, Patty Jenkins’ return, Joss Whedon’s role in the DC movies and much, much more…

June 20th, 2017 by Marc Comments

It’s fair to say that, so far, the DC Cinematic Universe has divided fans and filmgoers alike.

Man of Steel is hailed by some as a masterpiece, while others consider it an abomination. The same with Batman V Superman – although the Ultimate Edition was much better received. Suicide Squad, while an enjoyable romp, is undeniably rushed and weak in places.

However, we can all agree that Wonder Woman is something pretty damned special.

And now, after the success of director Patty Jenkins movie, it seems that DC and Warners may be having a new outlook on the direction to move forward.

Warners president and chief content officer, Toby Emmerich, says that Wonder Woman is exactly the hero the world was calling out for: “The zeitgeist of the culture, in America and many parts of the world, were ready to embrace a female superhero,” Emmerich says.

And, it seems, Warners/DC are pushing forward with the female heroes and villains: “I know that our competitors are going to look at the success of this movie,” emmerich says. “People love to call Hollywood lemmings, and it’s not always unfair. I’m sure that plenty of producers and writers and studio executives are asking, ‘What the heck happened with “Wonder Woman,” and how do we get in on that action?’”

But while ‘the competitors’ do have Captain Marvel lined up and read to go, DC/Warners are pushing ahead with Gotham City Sirens which will see Margot Robbie reprise her role as Harley Quinn along with Joss Whedon’s Batgirl movie… not to mention we now know that Wonder Woman II is officially happening.

“It will take place somewhere between 1917 and 2017,” Emmerich says of Diana Prince’s return to the big screen. He also promises a lot more Diana Prince this time around and not just her powerful alter ego and, even better, Director Patty Jenkins in on board to helm once again.

DC’s Geoff Johns said: “Patty and I are writing the treatment right now. The goal is to make another great “Wonder Woman” film. I had a blast making it with Patty the first time. We’ve got a cool idea for the second one.”

But what of the darker elements in comic book movies that have recently come around, like Deadpool and Logan? “I would be surprised if we didn’t at some point make an R-rated DC movie,” says Emmerich.

Hmmmmmm… which DC character would you like to see in an R-Rated outing? Lobo, perhaps? John Constantine?

In related news

Jon Berg and Geoff Johns, the two men overseeing the DC film universe atWarner Bros reckon that Wonder Woman is doing so well because at its heart “It’s a fun movie. It’s positive and optimistic. The early films may have been too dark in parts.”

Johns, who sings the praise of the comics’ optimism and hope, believes that the movies need to try a little harder to get the love they deserve: “Suicide Squad did incredibly well commercially. It didn’t work narratively. You had some great casting and some great characterizations, but where the story fell down was on narrative, on plot. We could do better. “Batman v. Superman” was tonally dark. People didn’t respond to that.

Echoing Emmerich, Johns goes on to talk about the ladies of the DC universe and their future on the big screen: “We’ve got a lot of plans for our female characters just because they’re great characters. There are many wonderful elements to the DC Universe, and one of them is that we have the best female characters, heroes and villains, in the world. No one is going to beat Wonder Woman and Batgirl and Harley Quinn.”

With the success of Wonder Woman and the fact that Zack Snyder has had to step down from finishing the movie due to  family tragedy (here) and leave the movie’s final filming to Joss Whedon, will we see Wonder Woman’s role bumped up?: “Her role won’t change, but she was already playing a big role. People really responded to Gal [Gadot] in “Batman v. Superman.” We knew we had something special.”

However, before Whedon took over on Justice League he was already on to write/direct the Batgirl movie but it seems the plans go even bigger than that: “He’s [Whedon] a big part already. We love him. He’s a great partner, collaborator; we want him to be ensconced. We bring people by, have general meetings and talk about comics and their favorite superhero movies. With Joss, he saw the master board, and he saw a “Batgirl” title and he said, “You guys seriously want to do ‘Batgirl’?” And we said, “Absolutely.” He said, “That’s my jam.””

So it looks like the DC Cinematic Universe is set for a strong female presence in the future and will be more aimed at hope and optimism… which, while we’re excited, we hope doesn’t mean the universe will be changing too much; we already have the MCU, let’s continue to keen the DC movies as something very different.

Although we have believed all along that this was the plan for the DC movies… anyone who watched the final scenes of Batman V Superman will know that a change was coming.

Source: Variety, Variety

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….