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This Makes Sense

Joss Whedon Knows Why David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman Failed, It Rhymes With Mavid B. Jelly

by Jill Pantozzi | 4:00 pm, September 16th, 2012


Joss Whedon is in the exclusive hands of Marvel for the next two years which means he’ll have nothing to do with the planned Wonder Woman television show on the CW but that doesn’t mean he won’t stop talking about the Amazon Princess. In fact, he recently had a few words to say about David E. Kelley’s failed pilot. 

The Avengers director was interviewed by Crave Online, and mostly discussed his Much Ado About Nothing project, but a Wonder Woman question snuck in. Particularly Kelley’s failed pilot and why Hollywood in general doesn’t know what to do with Diana. Whedon replied:

I don’t think that was a match. I just don’t. I don’t think that he needs to write about superheroes. You need to need to write about superheroes to write about superheroes. If that’s not in your vernacular, you may bring something new and interesting to it, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have that burning desire to talk about these people who have these insane powers, then some other agenda is going to come forward and you might accidentally turn off the dark.

How right he is. If Kelley had taken on superhero lawyer She-Hulk, things might have turned out differently but he certainly didn’t have a handle on Wonder Woman. Before his Marvel exclusivity, Whedon talked about how bummed he was that his Wonder Woman project never got off the ground and what it would have been like:

She was a little bit like Angelina Jolie [laughs]. She sort of traveled the world. She was very powerful and very naïve about people, and the fact that she was a goddess was how I eventually found my in to her humanity and vulnerability because she would look at us and the way we kill each other and the way we let people starve and the way the world is run and she’d just be like, ‘None of this makes sense to me. I can’t cope with it, I can’t understand, people are insane.’

Still lamenting that but I’m willing to give this new Wonder Woman series a chance considering Warner Bros. themselves is giving it a chance a year after Kelley’s project tanked.

(via Blastr)

Previously in Whedon

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  • http://www.facebook.com/rickie.d Rick TJ Desilets

    Did no one else catch the tongue-in-cheek reference to the Spider-Man musical there? Man’s a genius.

  • http://www.facebook.com/sam.spahn Sam Spahn

    And yet if David E. Kelley made a She-hulk series, it would have been brilliant. Imagine it, Ally McBeal with the occasional giant monster fight.

  • http://twitter.com/ReallyOnlyErin Erin Treat

    Too bad DC is screwing Wonder Woman up so badly in the New 52. I hope the show is good.

  • Nick Gaston

    I think one internet reviewer’s take on the pilot said it well—that it’s like the only reason Kelly could imagine someone NOT wanting to be a lawyer was an utter contempt for the law.

  • http://twitter.com/ChasFemGeek Christina Janke

    I know nothing of She-Hulk, but Manhunter (Kate Spencer) might have been a better fit for Kelley than WW.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christina-Sabia/100003005667380 Christina Sabia

    Umm, I’ve seen the unaired Wonder Woman pilot. David E. Kelley needs to stay away from superheroes altogether. Wonder Woman was this close to being a crazy vigilante. She killed without thought, tortured a suspect, had no respect for any sort of due process and was just too brutal. Instead of giving the character heart and compassion, he tried to shoehorn in the usual feminine tropes. Stuff like her being alone at the end of the day watching TV with her cat, her being angry about her doll having big breasts and her pining after her ex-boyfriend. I wouldn’t have minded so much but her her brutality as Wonder Woman, I’d want to see something more than cliches to make me feel for her as a character.

  • JW

    I did. Made me chuckle.

  • JW

    Considering how out-there Ally McBeal was sometimes, that actually wouldn’t be all that odd in comparison.

  • Anonymous

    No. Nobody else got that. In fact, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

  • Life Lessons

    David E. Kelley is also a misogynist. He tries not to be but bam he totally is. He shouldn’t be allowed near the project.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rickie.d Rick TJ Desilets

    He compared David E. Kelley’s pilot to the horrific catastrophe that is Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.

  • Anonymous

    I’m glad you got the sarcasm ;-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/rickie.d Rick TJ Desilets

    Ha, my bad. You never know sometimes.

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