Whedon Ankles Wonder Woman

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“Ankles” being Variety slang for “bails.” According to Whedonesque, and subsequently every entertainment trade outlet in the ‘verse, Joss Whedon is off the Wonder Woman project. Let’s see, how much can I legally quote?

Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional. We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that’s never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don’t think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk. I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.

That seems about right.

Whedon stresses that it wasn’t a big evil studio thing, he’s not mad, and also that contrary to multitudinous rumors, nobody had been tapped to don the bustier: “Finally and forever: I never had an actress picked out, or even a consistant front-runner. I didn’t have time to waste on casting when I was so busy air-balling on the script. (No! Rim! There was rim!)”

The one time I got to interview Whedon (he was exactly as smart and funny as you would think) he pointed out that there really hasn’t ever been a truly kick-ass incarnation of Wonder Woman, so he didn’t feel there was some great legacy to draw on, nor was there a great legacy there for him to screw up. I tend to concur. There was something dangerously earnest and humorless about WW, and also something gimmicky and not quite organic about her various attributes — she’s an Amazon! With, um, an invisible plane! And a rope! And bangles! Like they kept adding and adding till she was powerful enough, but by that point she’d stopped being a coherent character.

So it’s not like it feels like some great opportunity was missed here. But still, one hopes the script will leak…