Wonder Woman 3 may not be happening, but it turns out that wasn’t down to Warner Bros.
According to The Wrap, writer and director Patty Jenkins “walked off” the project after her ideas for the film were met with skepticism.
An insider has claimed that Jenkins let Warner Bros. co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy “know that they were wrong, that they didn’t understand her, didn’t understand the character, didn’t understand character arcs and didn’t understand what Jenkins was trying to do.”
It apparently all came to a head when Jenkins sent an email to De Luca that ended with a link to the Wikipedia definition of “character arc.”
Jenkins directed both Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 and was due to return to the franchise alongside its star Gal Gadot for Wonder Woman 3. But while she’s said to have submitted her treatment for the film just a few days ago, word quickly spread that the upcoming sequel had been canned.
Although the decision was said to have come under the new leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran, it turns out that they had nothing to do with the decision to reject Jenkins’ treatment – the incident that’s at the heart of her beef with Warner Bros. Instead, it was reportedly De Luca and Abdy who decided not to move forward with Jenkins’ version of the film.
It’s thought that the Warner Bros. executives felt it was the wrong direction for the franchise, and asked Jenkins if she would pitch another idea. Jenkins refused, instead choosing to exit the project entirely.
Apparently, Jenkins specifically didn’t want to hear what Gunn and Safran had to say about the project, despite them not being involved in the decision not to move forward with her treatment.
“She just doesn’t want to allow them to have a seat at the table to have an opinion on something new that she might come up with,” explained an insider.
At the moment, Gal Gadot is still attached to the Wonder Woman franchise, and a sequel hasn’t been completely ruled out. However, it looks as though any plans with Jenkins at the helm have gone out the window.
Want to read more about Wonder Woman? Check out why DC may soon end the Snyderverse as well as how to watch every DCEU movie in chronological order.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.