From director Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot in the title role, “Wonder Woman 1984” fast forwards to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her riding lightning across the sky, donning wings of gold, and chasing a dream while in pursuit of two new formidable foes: Max Lord and the Cheetah.
In “Wonder Woman 1984,” the fate of the world is once more on the line, and only Wonder Woman can save it. This new chapter in the Wonder Woman story finds Diana Prince living quietly among mortals in the vibrant, sleek 1980s—an era of excess driven by the pursuit of having it all. Though she’s come into her full powers, she maintains a low profile, curating ancient artifacts and only performing her superheroic acts incognito. But now, Diana will have to step directly into the spotlight and muster all her wisdom, strength and courage in order to save mankind from a world of its own making.
The film also stars Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig as the Cheetah, Pedro Pascal as Max Lord, Robin Wright as Antiope and Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta.
Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder, Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot and Stephen Jones produced the film. Rebecca Steel Roven Oakley, Richard Suckle, Marianne Jenkins, Geoff Johns, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo and Wesley Coller served as the executive producers.
Jenkins directed from a screenplay she wrote with Geoff Johns & Dave Callaham, story by Jenkins & Johns, based on characters from DC. Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston. Joining the director behind the scenes are several members of her “Wonder Woman” team, including director of photography Matthew Jensen, Oscar-nominated production designer Aline Bonetto (“Amélie”), and Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming (“Topsy- Turvy”). Oscar-nominated editor Richard Pearson (“United 93”) cut the film. The music is by Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer (“Dunkirk,” “The Lion King”).
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents an Atlas Entertainment/Stone Quarry Production, a Patty Jenkins Film, “Wonder Woman 1984.” The film is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures in select theaters and IMAX on December 25, 2020, and will also be available the same day on HBO Max.
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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
SHE WILL IGNITE THE HERO IN ALL OF US
Wonder Woman returns in an epic actioner that takes audiences on an adventure through the not-too-distant past and our hero on a journey that spans the globe.
It’s 1984 and the United States of America is at the apex of power and pride, bringing out the best—and worst—in us. Commercialism, wealth, art, technology, glamour…everything easily within reach, with a “have it all” mentality that inevitably leads to wanting even more. A setting completely different from the World War I period that introduced moviegoers to Wonder Woman in 2017, it’s the ideal decade to again challenge her compassion and her sense of justice, fairness and selflessness, along with her unwavering love for humankind. Despite her many years living and working amongst society, for Diana Prince the notions of “me” and “more” are as foreign as civilization was when she first left her island paradise 66 years ago to save the world from destruction. Now, she must save it once more…from itself.
Director/co-writer/producer Patty Jenkins aimed to fill the screen with even bigger action and higher stakes for the title character. “In the first film, Diana engaged with the first wave of the mechanization of the world; this time, she engages with humankind at the height of its success or, more accurately, excess,” she states. “As before, there’s something for everyone in the audience to enjoy, and a lot for the tried-and-true fans to love.” Jenkins—who sits squarely among the latter—says that is because “the core of the story never loses sight of what Wonder Woman is: optimistic, positive, courageous…our better self. She is a perfect example of what I believe superheroes are meant to do, which is to show us how to be our better selves and remind us that by doing so, we can create a better world.”
Gal Gadot, who not only returns in the starring dual role of Diana Prince and Wonder Woman, but is among the producers on the film, says, “In ‘Wonder Woman’ Diana was learning what it meant to live alongside humans for the first time. In this film, she has a parallel arc with humanity in that, over time, she has learned to feel as they do.”
Gadot recalls when the idea for this story first began to germinate for Jenkins. “Patty and I were still working on the first film, and we didn’t know how people were going to react yet. But we’re both big dreamers,” she smiles, “and we thought if we were able to make another Wonder Woman film, it would have to be a completely different chapter in her life.”
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Producer Charles Roven, who has a long history of exploring very relatable themes through aspirational DC heroes, adds that, for this Wonder Woman story, “We wanted it to take place far enough into her future that she would have evolved and matured. The 1980s was an interesting time to place someone timeless like Diana because there was a sense of invincibility, that your aspirations could be limitless. But with the passing of that many decades, she has also had to deal with things she never did in her young life as an immortal Amazon: the loss of people she loves.”
Providing the character with an even deeper connection to an everyday human experience—the vulnerability that comes with longing—is the one individual Diana lost who has never really left her, at least in her heart: Steve Trevor. Though Jenkins has kept the circumstances of the character’s return in the new film close to the vest, she says his involvement in the new story was never in doubt. “It made perfect sense within the plot that we were formulating. In fact, Gal and Chris knew halfway through shooting the first film what they could expect if we made a second.”
Chris Pine, returning in the pivotal role, offers, “Patty knew exactly how she wanted Steve to come back, and she’s such an incredible storyteller, pictorially, cinematically and in person. I was immediately excited by the prospect of being back in a world she would create again and, of course, working side by side with Gal.”
If the first film exposed Diana to romantic love, this one, Gadot explains, explores another value the character holds. “This film is about truth, which sounds simple but is, in many ways, very complicated. As people, we have to learn how to appreciate the here and now—the truth of our situation—but we also desire to set that aside for what we want, what we don’t have, what is not the truth of our situation. Of course we can try to have it all, but can we ever, really?”
Diana is convinced she cannot. That is, until she is suddenly face to face with her heart’s one desire, and her eagerness to believe leads her to cast any doubts she may have aside. But almost immediately, Diana and Steve’s reunion is interrupted by not one, but two iconic Wonder Woman Super-Villains: Maxwell Lord and the Cheetah.
Kristen Wiig takes on the dual role of bookish, awkward scientist Barbara Minerva and her alter ego the Cheetah, one of fandom’s favorites as well as one of Wonder Woman’s most formidable rivals. “When Patty called me about being in the movie, I immediately said yes because I loved the first one. It was that simple. Then when I read the script, I was so excited by the extent of the transformation of my character, how much she changes and how evil she becomes. I’ve always wanted to do something like that, so it was a dream for me to get to play her.”
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Maxwell Lord, a villain who entered the DC canon in the 1980s, is played by Pedro Pascal. Having long admired Jenkins, the actor was admittedly as drawn to working with the director as he was to the role. “The era that has influenced me and really stayed with me the most is the `80s, for better or worse, I suppose,” he laughs. “That feeling of nostalgia, getting to plunge into that world with a brilliant filmmaker who understands it so well… Who wouldn’t want to be a part of exploring a character like Wonder Woman, the Super Hero we didn’t even realize we needed so badly? Until Patty and Gal brought her to us to remind us of our humanity in the most entertaining way.”
In addition to upping the ante and the action with a high-stakes global challenge for the DC Super Hero that’s both physical and emotional, the `80s also offered the filmmakers exciting design opportunities for the look and feel of the film, from its environs to costumes. For Jenkins, the setting was a personal as well as professional choice. “The initial idea of setting the story in 1984 came from my desire to see Wonder Woman in my era, an era that to me is synonymous with her, in terms of the character’s cultural popularity. What then became really fun and challenging about the setting was trying to make a film that wasn’t referential to the period, but that actually recreated the feel of watching a movie in the `80s, that felt authentic to that experience.”
Producer Stephen Jones notes, “Even though we were making an epic superhero movie— with a lot of larger-than-life action sequences, taking place across several countries and shooting on location whenever possible—working with Patty and understanding her vision, we knew the film would also feel grounded. She likes to work in-camera in order to make everything look and feel as real as possible.”
The production would cover a good deal of ground, in fact, filming in the U.S., England, Wales, Spain and the Canary Islands. “The global footprint of this film is one of the largest I’ve ever worked on,” Roven relates. “We also were able to shoot on both 35mm film and 65mm IMAX, which is always really exciting as it creates a true sense of spectacle and is one of the most immersive mediums in film today.”
The impressive format, along with the incredibly detailed settings, allowed the filmmakers and cast to fully immerse themselves and the audience in a not-too-distant bygone era seen through the eyes of one of the world’s most inspiring superheroes. “This is now the Wonder Woman we all remember, who can come in and easily handle a crime in progress, no big deal, right?” Jenkins asks. “It’s easy for her, she’s the most powerful she’s ever been, or will be…or at least it seems that way.”
