Director of Wonder Woman and its sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, Patty Jenkins has asked the media to ‘chill’ with the overdramatic headlines about comments she recently made about being at odds with Warner Bros over the production of the superhero film.
In a couple of tweets, the filmmaker expressed her gratitude towards the studio, and director Zack Snyder, who co-produced both Wonder Woman films and is responsible for the casting of Gal Gadot in the starring role.
“Versions of this article seems to be everywhere and not true. There was no ‘war’ with warner bros. over ww. I’m talking about 10 years of discussions with 10 different execs through them. And whole beard thing was about other projects at other studios,” she wrote in her first tweet. “I felt extremely supported in my vision on both films by @wbpictures, @ZackSnyder all the producers and everyone on board our eventual team. Just was a long road to get to make it. Let’s chill the dramatic headlines like ‘war’,” she added.
In an appearance on Marc Maron’ WTF podcast, the filmmaker said that initially, she was brought on board the project as a hired gun, when she was broke and jobless after her Oscar-winning debut feature, Monster. “They wanted to hire me like a beard; they wanted me to walk around on set as a woman, but it was their story and their vision. And my ideas? They didn’t even want to read my script,” she said, adding, “There was such mistrust of a different way of doing things and a different point of view. So that was definitely happening, even when I first joined Wonder Woman it was like, ‘Uhh, yeah, ok, but let’s do it this other way.’ But I was like, ‘Women don’t want to see that. Her being harsh and tough and cutting people’s heads off, that’s not what— I’m a Wonder Woman fan, that’s not what we’re looking for.’ Still, I could feel that shaky nervousness [on their part] of my point of view.”
“The was an internal war on every level about what Wonder Woman should be,” she continued, adding that at one point, there were approximately 30 scripts for the film being considered.
