Despite earlier reports, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins is not signed with Warner Brothers for a sequel to the comic book adaptation.
With the film grossing just over $103 million this past weekend and being poised to hold onto the number 1 spot at the box office this weekend, Warners is sure to want to get a sequel fast-tracked as soon as possible. This put Jenkins at the advantage over the studio when the two begin negotiations at some point in the near future. IT is very likely in addition to a bigger payday for herself, she could possible get more creative input into the initial screenwriting stage of the sequel.
Some may question why the studio didn’t include a sequel option in Jenkins’s original contract. If Warners trusted her enough to put her in charge of the biggest budgeted film ever directed by a female helmer, then they must have felt that it would certainly be a hit. While there is often no accounting for the reasoning behind some studio moves, it should be remembered that Jenkins had gone 14 years since her last feature, Monster, and that film had a budget almost 5% of what Wonder Woman cost.
Conversely, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is signed with Warner Brothers for five total films – last year’s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice in which she debuted as Wonder Woman, the current Wonder Woman, a sequel and two Justice League films, the first of which we’ll see in November.
Warners is currently in somewhat of a state of disarray when it comes to their slate of DC Comics superhero films. Both The Flash and The Batman have not been able to nail down a creative team, with both projects cycling through a number of creatives. Previously scheduled movies featuring the characters of Cyborg and Green Lantern don’t appear to have even started looking for writers or directors and are now absent from the studio’s release calendar. As of now, the studio has eight release dates announced for franchise installments between now and the end of 2020. Only two of them – November 17, 2017 for Justice League and December 21, 2018 for Aquaman – have actual film titles penciled in. The Hollywood Reporter speculates that it is likely that the next projects to go into production will be a teamup of DC Comic’s supernatural-themed heroes based on the Justice League Dark comic and writer/director Joss Whedon’s Batgirl project.
