Since Warner Bros. announced its plan to release a standalone Wonder Woman film in 2017 – a reveal that took place less than three weeks ago – the internet has come alive with speculation and rumours. Is it being conceived as a trilogy? Will the first one be set in the 1920s?
The excitement is understandable – many of us have been calling for the Amazonian Warrior Princess to headline her own movie franchise for years – but the narrative that it produces is perhaps even more fascinating. This is especially true of the rumours swirling around potential directors, which today, has taken a dramatic about-turn.
Soon after the movie was announced, The Hollywood Reporter covered the rumour that Warner Bros. was specifically seeking a ‘female director’ to bring Wonder Woman to the big screen. Twitter and fan-sites lit up at the suggestion – some extolling the virtues of such a decision, and some dismissing it as a token gesture. The name cited by many as the best candidate was Kathryn Bigelow, while others declared this as short-sighted – offering up less well known, but very talented names such as Michelle MacLaren (Breaking Bad), or Lexi Alexander (Green Street). Now comes the bombshell rumour – from Bleeding Cool – that actually, Warner Bros. has considered exactly zero women to direct Wonder Woman:
“I understand that only male directors have been approached regarding directing the Wonder Woman movie.”
Now, before I fall into the bottomless, endless vacuum of reporting-on-reporting, let me be clear – until any of these rumours are stated as fact by Warner Bros., they remain exactly that – rumours. The point is that Wonder Woman rumours – perhaps even more so than those of any other future production – highlight attitudes that are so deeply ingrained in the media and in ourselves that we rarely notice they are even there.
