As director Patty Jenkins confirms that Wonder Woman 3 was axed by Warner Bros, co-star Chris Pine has expressed his befuddlement at the decision.
Director Patty Jenkins, who made 2017’s Wonder Woman and its 2020 sequel Wonder Woman 1984, has confirmed that the third film in the series is essentially dead. And with the whole DC Universe now in the process of being rebooted by James Gunn, it’s likely that the whole timeline (and its characters) established by Jenkins has come to an end.
Chris Pine, who co-starred as dashing pilot Steve Trevor in Jenkins’ movies, has expressed his amazement that Warner Bros didn’t proceed with Wonder Woman 3 – a project Jenkins worked on for at least a few months before it was cancelled in December 2022.
“I’m stunned that they said no to a billion-dollar franchise and decided to pivot elsewhere,” Pine said in an interview with Business Insider (via Variety). “I don’t know what the reasoning was behind that; it’s above my pay grade, but Wonder Woman is an incredible character; Patty is such a thoughtful director.”
Pine isn’t the only actor to express their surprise at Wonder Woman 3′s cancellation. In late March, Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman in the 1970s TV show, described Jenkins’ project as “really interesting, wonderful and about something important.”
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“I don’t think they [Warner Bros] want to do it unless there’s enough pressure from fans,” Carter told Yahoo Movies. “I just don’t think they have the mind to do it. And I don’t understand that, because it seems to me that Wonder Woman is different from other characters. She’s not just a superhero. Her whole thing is about peaceful solutions. She’s not aggressive to be aggressive. It’s a different story. It’s about inner strength, outer strength. I don’t know why they tabled it, because it’s a great franchise.”
Most recently, Jenkins confirmed that Wonder Woman 3 had indeed been scrapped, “probably easily forever”, she said on the Talking Pictures Podcast.
“They aren’t interested in doing any Wonder Woman for the time being,” Jenkins said. “It’s not an easy task, with what’s going on with DC. James Gunn and Peter Safran have to follow their own heart into their own plans. I don’t know what they are planning on doing or why, so I have sympathy for what a big job it is and they have to follow their heart and do what they’ve got planned.”
Jenkins, meanwhile, is now working on another long-in-gestation franchise project: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Jenkins is currently working on that film’s script; there’s still an element of uncertainty surrounding it, though, with Jenkins recently saying in the aforementioned podcast, “We’ll see what happens there. Who knows?”
