After the breakout success of 2017’sWonder Woman, filmmaker Patty Jenkins was given full freedom by Warner Bros. to make the next movie in the series completely according to her personal vision. The result wasWonder Woman 1984, which was released at the end of 2020 on HBO Max after a spate of delays, to mostly mixed reviews. Connie Nielsen, who played the role of Queen of the Amazons Hippolyta in the film, opined in a recent interview that the fact thatWonder Woman 1984could not open in theaters put unfair pressure on the project.
“I think that Patty has thisextraordinary vision. And it must have been incredibly painful to not be able to have a normal release and to have your release shuffled over and over, feeling this enormous weight on your shoulders for a pretty big blockbuster film, that you’re supposed to be bringing the bacon back to the company, and you can’t because you can’t open the film.”
The main reason for thenegative reviews for Wonder Woman 1984had a lot to do with the story that Jenkins chose to tell. The characterization of Princess Diana aka Wonder Woman seemed to have been consciously moved away from her warrior persona, to the extent that Diana goes out of her way to never use her sword or any other weapon except her golden lasso.
Then there was the climax of the movie, which saw Diana saving the day not by defeating the enemy in combat, but by appealing to everyone in the world to renounce their wishes at the same time. According toConnie Nielsen, this pacifist approach to problem-solving was something new in the superhero genre, which, along with the long delays in its release, made fans more critical ofWonder Woman 1984than was warranted.
“I think that what happens psychologically is that a lot of movies like that then get into this insecure territory where they’re up for a judgment that would not normally have happened. The fact that it wasmoved so many times, put it under scrutiny that it did not deserve. It also, as a sophomore film, will always be compared to the one before… A lot of people were so willing to just critique certain elements instead of seeing it as a whole. And I think that as a whole, everything that happens in this film makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s a beautiful film.”
Queen Hippolyta will return in the plannedAmazonsspinoff project that Jenkins is currently developing, as well as the third installment in theWonder Womanfranchise that the filmmaker is also set to helm. Directed and co-written by Patty Jenkins,Wonder Woman 1984stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, and Natasha Rothwell. The film is now in theaters. The film is now on digital and will become available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 30.DenofGeekswas the first to report this news.
