‘Wonder Woman 1984’: Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, and Chris Pine Debut First Footage and Explain The Time Period Choice
“Wonder Woman 1984” stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine joined their writer-director Patty Jenkins at San Diego Comic-Con Saturday morning to thank DC fans and preview what’s to come. Although they are only three-and-a-half weeks into production — “We only have 20 more weeks to go!” Gadot gushed — the trio showed a brief rough cut during the Warner Bros. presentation. The clip shows Wonder Woman swooping into frame from a mall escalator and sliding an adorable little girl into a stack of oversized teddy bears so the hero can disarm and lasso two bad guys. A quick shot of Wonder Woman dashing past driving cars then accompanied the title.
“It’s not a sequel,” explained Gadot. “It’s it’s own story, it’s a different chapter, it’s a whole new movie.”
As to why Jenkins set the film in the ’80s, she said, “One of my favorite things about making the first movie in World War 1917 was getting to know the era. Really, when you dig into these eras, they as metaphors really symbolize things that are true always. And there was something about that time that was such the beginning of modernity and the mechanized world.”
She continued, “It’s funny, I grew up in the ’80s, there are lots of things set in the ’80s right now, but, this is its entirely own ’80s movie, actually, with a very different look and feel and its own thing. And the reason that I wanted to set it here is because it really was mankind at its best and worst. We’re aware of the prices of some of our behavior nowadays, but we weren’t in the 8’0s. We were at the top.
But not just the funny ha-ha ’80s top — it was grand and wonderful, and there was great music,” Jenkins added. “There was a lot of elegant and beautiful and incredible things about the ’80s, too, at the same time as we were revealing the worst of us. So there was no better time. Now that we have Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman existed, to see Wonder Woman in a period of time that’s really us at our most extreme…Everything we were doing right then, we thought it could go on forever, so what an interesting time to reflect back on now.”
However, Jenkins was mum on how Pine’s character makes his way into “Wonder Woman 1984,” since he died in the preceding film. “What is he back here for?” she asked. “Well, it’s something I’m super excited about and [for] everybody to see the movie to find that out,” revealing only that “it’s a very important part of our movie.” Pine told Hall H that they were just imagining his presence onstage. “I am actually just an aura of emotional support for my pals.”
“Wonder Woman 1984” arrives in theaters November 1, 2019.
