Uh-oh, I’m really starting to get my hopes up.
Director Patty Jenkins and executive producer Geoff Johns sat down at WonderCon in Anaheim, California to air some Wonder Woman footage and talk about their approach to the film…and I really loved what they had to say.
According to the LA Times, Jenkins and Johns both emphasized that “Diana is and always will be about love.” They spoke about how her particular moral code makes her unique in the DC universe. “She’s not the only character who has a strong moral compass and a belief system, of course,” said Jenkins, “but what I like about her is that that is her mission. Her mission is a belief of mankind and what they can be. I feel like there are a lot of superheroes who are chosen or find themselves in these positions. She’s one of the very few who believes in goodness and kindness and justice and love, who comes to our world hoping to instill that in other people, but is willing to use force if that’s what she must do, to keep mankind safe.”
That doesn’t mean we won’t get to see plenty of fight scenes. “[Wonder Woman] is the best fighter in the DC universe,” said Johns, and the movie will spend plenty of time exploring how she became that way. Jenkins was, according to the LA Times, “adamant that the audience see Diana’s transformation into a champion.” As she said at the panel, “What I care about is this as a character piece.”
They aired three clips: an extended teaser which built on scenes from the trailers, a fight scene where Diana battles her way through a building filled with WWI German soldiers, and a gender-reversal homage to the Lois and Clark mugging scene from 1978’s Superman.
In the mugging scene, Diana and Steve Trevor are ambushed in a London alley. Steve steps in front of Diana, imagining he’ll protect her, but Diana is the one who deflects their assailant’s bullet. Jenkins described Steve as a character who “brings the comic relief, [the] love story, and symbolizes the depth of man.” He brings the comic relief and the love story.
Lastly, Jenkins emphasized her own enduring fandom. “I am a huge Wonder Woman fan,” she said, “and the aspiration [to make a great film about her] comes totally naturally to me. Nothing about DC, or nothing about the world, or nothing about anything could change that pressure. I want to make great films in my lifetime, and I really want to make a great film about Wonder Woman…Who should make a great movie about Wonder Woman? It should be somebody who loves Wonder Woman. And I know that I’m that. So let’s go and try.”
(Via Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter; image via Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment)
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