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Wonder Woman 3 director speaks out on cancellation, still working on Rogue Squadron

‘I never walked away,’ Patty Jenkins says

wonder woman in eagle armor from wonder woman 1984 Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Pictures
Oli Welsh is senior editor, U.K., providing news, analysis, and criticism of film, TV, and games. He has been covering the business & culture of video games for two decades.

Patty Jenkins, the director of the two Wonder Woman movies starring Gal Gadot, has spoken out about the cancellation of Wonder Woman 3 by Warner Bros. which was reported by The Hollywood Reporter last week.

Jenkins posted a statement to Twitter which asserted that she “never walked away” from the project. Jenkins was responding to a follow-up report from The Wrap which claimed that Jenkins had refused to rework her treatment for the film after producers had rejected it. The report said producers had invited her to pitch again, but she had quit rather than revise her ideas.

“This is simply not true,” Jenkins wrote in her statement. “I never walked away. I was open to considering anything asked of me. It was my understanding there was nothing I could do to move anything forward at this time.”

Jenkins laid the blame at the door of the corporate upheaval at Warner Bros., which is restructuring and slimming down production after its merger with Discovery as it also seeks to reorganise DC film and TV under the new DC Studios banner and its heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. “DC is obviously buried in changes they are having to make, so I understand these decisions are difficult right now,” she said.

Gunn offered tacit endorsement of Jenkins’ version of events. Replying to Jenkins’ tweet, he said, “I can attest that all of Peter and my interactions with you were only pleasant and professional.”

Jenkins also set the record straight on Rogue Squadron, the Star Wars film she was set to make before it was removed from Disney’s schedule. The movie remains in active development, she said, though it’s not a dead cert that it will be made.

Jenkins explained that she had originally left Rogue Squadron due to a scheduling clash with Wonder Woman 3, but that Lucasfilm had asked if she would come back and make it after the DC film, which she agreed to do.

“I originally left Rogue Squadron after a long and productive development process when it became clear it couldn’t happen soon enough and I did not want to delay WW3 any further,” she said. “When I did, Lucasfilm asked me to consider coming back to RS after WW3, which I was honored to do, so I agreed. They made a new deal with me. In fact, I am still on it and that project has been in active development ever since. I don’t know if it will happen or not. We never do until the development process is complete, but I look forward to its potential ahead.”

Presumably Rogue Squadron has an improved chance of getting back on track with Wonder Woman 3 no longer on Jenkins’ schedule.

In her statement, Jenkins paid tribute to Wonder Woman fans, as well as to Gadot and to Lynda Carter, the actress who portrayed the character on TV in the 1970s, and to the character of Wonder Woman herself. “Living in and around her values makes one a better person every day,” she said. “I wish her and her legacy an amazing future ahead, with or without me.”

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