Why is Wonder Woman like this?

The start of the pandemic in 2020 had repercussions across the world, disrupting our way of life as we still feel. Everything has been affected, including the entertainment industry, with many Hollywood studios delaying the making and release of films. But ultimately, some bit the bullet and chose to let go. something, even though it was just streaming, and that’s how we ended up releasing Warner Bros. Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day 2020, both in cinemas And on HBO Max.

Watching a movie in the theater is a totally different experience than just watching it at home, especially superhero movies. Without access to a big screen, I ended up watching the film on my phone when it came out, and then on my television more recently. I’ll never know how I and most of us would have enjoyed this movie if it had been released in a normal world, but in the one we currently find ourselves in, it’s still surprising how bad it is.

Nothing about this has really gotten better over time, and if anything, things like the parallels to Donald Trump and everything surrounding Steve Trevor have gotten worse. It’s open-ended, sure, and clunky, yes, but it all feels like a work worth watching even when you’re not actually watching it for the work.

Anything else that hasn’t aged well? The concept of Wonder Woman as a multimedia franchise, including 1984 will effectively remain the last word for the foreseeable future. Despite the collection lots of views at the time, the reactions did not feel the sequel, and after making short appearances in The lightning And Shazam2 as a reminder that she was still there, Diana was put back on the shelf.

Her the third solo film was abandoned After James Gunn has started again with a new DC movie universe – one that’s been waiting a while to find someone new take the tiara and the lasso. (For what it’s worth, Gal Gadot sure tried to fight the tide and stay in this new continuity, but like Black Adam and Superman before it, it didn’t work at all.) And then earlier this year we learned the Wonder Woman game announced in 2021 had been canceled; its creator, Monolith Productions, was also shut down, which would have been a whole saga to himself.

So yeah, it’s not a particularly great time to be a Wonder Woman fan, which is surprising to say considering the goodwill the first film had won in 2017. WB spent years doing everything possible not to give her a movie or even give her another TV show other than the idea of ​​her being in a movie alongside Batman and Superman And getting his own solo film the following year seemed impossible. That his original film was good and had box office to show for it, because it seems like a lifetime ago. His appearances, from The Justice League The 2017 version until her last two cameos didn’t really let her do much beyond letting the audience know that she looked good in fights and had one of the most divisive musical themes in the history of superheroes.

She’s not the first hero to fall into a creative rut; on the contrary, Wonder Woman is just one among many, like Spider-Man, Black Pantheretc., who have found themselves facing various obstacles in the various mediums in which their owners would very much like them to thrive. It’s unfortunate that bad luck is one of the most powerful constants in the universe, but here goes: no one can blame the X-Men for currently being in a holding pattern until their MCU debut, just as it’s not Diana’s fault that Warner Bros. threatens to collapse in its different divisions every two weeks.

She is, like all of them, just a victim of what it means to be a well-known intellectual property these days: sometimes your owners don’t really know what to do with you and make it everyone’s problem while they try to figure out what your next mid-to-mid years will look like.

It’s the “understand” part that will be interesting to see; both this year Superman and 2022 The Batman sought to focus on key aspects of their respective heroes that were not as emphasized in their previous cinematic incarnations. The question then becomes whether Wonder Woman will follow suit and what that means when her catalog is much thinner in comparison, which likely played a role in her first adjacent project in this new DC Universe, a TV prequel. focused on the Amazons rather than herself.

Perhaps through this, WB hopes to uncover what Wonder Woman means and represents in a way distinct from Gadot’s tenure while also being informed by her ups and downs. Whenever this new Diana comes on the scene, she’ll have big shoes to fill…maybe not big shoes, but shoes to fill nonetheless. And I hope that by then, Gunn and anyone in charge of this new incarnation will have more than a vision worthy of a film on what to do with it.

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