WONDER WOMAN 1984

WONDER WOMAN 1984 I Diana Prince is back, in the decade when greed was good.

We (super)power up for more of the DCEU’s MVP.

Records, glass ceilings, and any dusty preconceptions about the ability of women to lead blockbusters (in front of and behind the camera) were smashed when the WW1-set standalone Wonder Woman grossed $822m worldwide in 2017.

“It was two different brands of pressure, which was funny,” says writer/director Patty Jenkins, comparing origin story and sequel. “The first time, it was a pressure to prove my belief that this could work. Because I felt passionately like, ‘Why would Wonder Woman not succeed? I’m going to kill myself to make this movie succeed.’”

It was also Jenkins’ first blockbuster, she points out, having previously directed Charlize Theron in Monster, so she was “doing one of these for the first time, and learning things I didn’t know.”

Jenkins – who co-wrote the WW84 script with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham – calls the ’80s-set sequel “a much harder movie to shoot… I was more ambitious with it. So doing all the stunts for real on wires and things, it’s extremely complicated and time-consuming. And everybody involved knows that you could say, ‘Oh, forget it, we’ll just do it in CG.’ So it was difficult in a new way.”

With Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince entering the era of unchecked capitalism, bumbags and exercise videos – this exclusive image sees Wonder Woman dispatching two goons in a shopping mall – expect a tonally different film from the World War 1-set original. “We weren’t trying to make a mimicry [of the ’80s],” says Jenkins. “We were trying to make a movie as if it was a grounded movie in the ’80s.”

The sequel sees the stakes upped with two villains: Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva, aka Cheetah, and Pedro Pascal’s Max Lord. Plus, old flame Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) has mysteriously returned, youthful as before, despite seemingly perishing in an exploding plane during WW1.

“The first one was, ‘Can anybody make Wonder Woman and make it succeed?’” ponders Jenkins. “And now the question is: ‘Can they follow it up? Can it ever be any good?’ It’s always a lot of pressure...” All the world is waiting. Again. MM

ETA | 5 JUNE / WONDER WOMAN 1984 OPENS THIS SUMMER.