The third instalment in the solo ‘Wonder Woman’ film trilogy is facing the threat of being shut down. While ‘WW84’ did perform below expectations, is it justified for the DC think-tank to mercilessly slaughter an otherwise fan-favourite trilogy?
2017’s ‘Wonder Woman’ was among the most successful solo ventures of the DC cinematic universe. The film was a strong critical and box office success. And as far as the superhero universes go, when it comes to the solo films, the heroes at-least get their own solo trilogy films. With the release of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ in 2020, we got the second film in the instalment, leaving us with only one more film to see Gal Gadot doing her business of beating up bad guys and saving the world. Even before the release of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’, we knew that a third instalment was in works, with Patty Jenkins helming the project herself. But, an unexpected event occurred and now the DC executives are pondering over whether a third ‘Wonder Woman’ movie is a smart idea. The event was the release of ‘WW84’ and the eventually box-office disaster of the film.
Highlights —
- ‘Wonder Woman 3’ faces cancellation?
- WW84 was a box office disaster
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ was a highly awaited film. Set in the groovy world of the 1980s, the film’s trailer resonated with the masses. It was highly awaited in the theatres. On the top of that, as WW was a part of the DCEU by then, her storyline had become crucial for the plot. The film hit the theatres in December 2020 amidst the pandemic with the world still slowly opening up to the Covid restrictions. This could have been one of the main reasons for the film to perform poorly at the box office. However, the pandemic had no impact over the critical reviews.
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ faced a lukewarm response by the critics
The critic’s reviews were not too kind towards ‘WW84’ and it was deemed to be ‘too long’ and ‘cliche’. However, there were instances were critics seemed to have divided on setting the film in the 1980s. Some critics called it a ‘unique’ and ‘marvellous choice’, while other discarded it right-away. The film was also criticized for taking the escapist route as it took several liberties with logics and the overall plot development. However, the film drew most of its critic towards the ‘tired’ direction by Patty and the ‘too many cliché’ elements in the script.
The film bombed at the box office, making only $166 million over its budget of 200 million. It was considered a debacle and its massive failure at the box office will surely impact the future of the Wonder Woman film trilogy. With the third film in the Wonder Woman franchise already under development, there is a certain danger that is hanging over the film’s prospect ever getting made. While one small misstep doesn’t really warrant pulling the plug on the entire franchise, the DC execs are known to be that ruthless.
While ‘Justice League’ was under production in 2016 and 2017, ‘Batman V Superman’ flopped and this caused the DC suits to change the course of ‘Justice League’ midway. They brought Joss Whedon in and changed the entire mood of the film, adding a few scenes, taking out a few, making changes in the script and thus, ruining the entire film.
Is ‘Wonder Woman 3’ really facing the threat of being cancelled?
But this time around, they aren’t in the mood to ‘redo’ ‘Wonder Woman 3’, but they have the power to pull the plug on it. The box office failure of WW84 has given them the necessary go-ahead to do that. But given Gal Gadot’s popularity among the DC fandom and following the unprecedented success of ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’, the DC people might just let it pass this time around. Afterall, it will anyway be the last solo Wonder Woman film. And after this film, Gal will be seen as WW only in other DC films, playing supporting or guest roles.
While the failure of WW84 was caused by many different factors, the film being bad wasn’t one of them. Hence, it would be totally unfortunate if ‘WW3’ gets cancelled.
Tell us in the comments whether you think cancelling ‘WW3’ based the cold response ‘WW84’ received justified? Also tell us your views on whether Patty Jenkins is the worthy successor of Zack Snyder for the future DC films.
