Wonder Woman 3 is no more. Call it what you will – DOA, kaput, trapped in the Phantom Zone perhaps – but Gal Gadot’s superhero franchise won’t be coming back for a third outing. At least, that’s what the latest report in Variety suggests, contradicting Gadot’s own claims that DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran were keen to offer her Amazonian crime-fighter another go around. Gadot has fronted two Wonder Woman films already – the warmly received Wonder Woman (2017) and its fudged 2020 follow-up Wonder Woman 1984 – and has appeared in multiple other DC films as the character. So what is it, exactly, that we have lost out on here?
The incident has rehashed old grievances for DC fans – specifically, the jettisoning of Henry Cavill in the role of Superman. When Gunn and Safran took over as co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios last year, the expectation was that they would impose some sense of authorship and direction over the franchise, as producer Kevin Feige did with Disney’s Marvel universe. Many fans hoped that this could mean Cavill would finally get the quality vehicle he deserved. But while Gunn and Safran have opted to carry over a few vestiges of the old regime – Margot Robbie’s flamboyant antihero Harley Quinn, for one – they have drawn a line under most of it, including, somewhat divisively, Cavill’s Superman. For the forthcoming Superman: Legacy, directed by Gunn, the character will be played by House of Cards’ David Corenswet. The announcement drew the ire of many comic book boffs, who had defended Cavill’s performance through thick and thin (let’s be honest, mostly thin – from Justice League to Batman v Superman, Cavill has been lumped with some truly dreadful material to work with). Cavill, they say, had earned a shot at a “good” Superman movie. But here’s the thing. No one owes him, or Gadot, anything.
