The story behind the failure of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman 1984
After a mixed reception for Gal Gadot’s WW 84 and a strong response for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, it is a very critical direction for WB Studios to decide which direction they want to lean on if they want to make the final Wonder Woman movie a financial and critical hit.
Wonder Woman 1984 – 10 Minute Preview
A roadmap by the original DCEU creators for Wonder Woman
Zack Snyder created a roadmap for how he would take his Justice League members to their final battle against Darkseid. But he left individual stories to various directors so that they could add their creative input and figure out a solo journey for their chosen characters. But when the Man Of Steel director was removed from DC after a troubled Justice League production, the roadmap was discarded.
Related: Explained: How Wonder Woman 1984 Completes Zack Snyder’s DCEU
A terrible script for Wonder Woman 1984
So while the first Wonder Woman movie was made by Patty Jenkins, it was based on a script by Snyder and followed her journey after the events of Batman Vs Superman. So when the initial plans were no longer valid, Jenkins had to come up with her script to pull off a sequel as good as the first one.
Jenkins wrote a script and screenplay with Geoff Johns, who has written a lot of comics but was one of the main critics of Snyder inside WB alongside Toby Emmerich for his dark tones for DC heroes. But the thing about scripts is, it has to be good to translate into an entertaining film.
A critical and commercial failure for WW 84
So while Snyder’s DC films might have been polarizing, his scripts alongside Oscar-winning writer Chris Terrio have a lot of attention to detail about each character, and a lot of layering and research have been done behind it.
So for Jenkins and Johns, it was a tough ask to write a good script and felt like a continuation for Wonder Woman from her first movie, but also show a complete change in the tone, going from a gritty warfighting Diana to a hopeful optimistic superman like a version of herself in Wonder Woman 1984.
As it turns out, they failed. WW 84 starring Gal Gadot was a critical and commercial disaster. The movie earned 167 million dollars against a budget of 200 million dollars, although that can be excused as it was one of the first movies to be released in the pandemic. But critically it was panned by fans and critics alike.
The movie has an IMDB score of 5.4/10 which is a stark contrast to Wonder Woman’s recent outing Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which has an 8.1/10 IMDb score and was praised for the warrior-like portrayal of Diana Prince.
In Wonder Woman 1984 she is portrayed as a much less fierce version of herself. Patty Jenkins even made her lose her sword so she would be less of a warrior. Though she uses golden armour in the final battle with Cheetah, she is relatively easy to beat compared to the warrior she is in Justice League.
Patty Jenkins chooses to show her as a symbol of hope, optimism, and love as she helps out many people. So let’s see what they go through in Wonder Woman 3, after having the perspective of 4 different outings of Diana Prince.
