There are 17 months standing between us and the release of the Man of Steel sequel, which we’re just calling Batman Vs. Superman until they give us an official title. Outside of some crowd footage shot at a college football game in October, they haven’t started filming yet. Heck, the script isn’t done, as indicated by Warner Bros. bringing in Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio to perform re-writes on David S. Goyer’s original draft. Basically, they’re still in the midst of pre-production, having yet to even cast a villain (or villains) for the movie (despite all that talk about Jason Momoa, he has not been officially announced as being cast in the movie).
Given the deep love, though, many have for either Batman or Superman or both the thirst for knowledge about this movie will pretty much be unquenchable until we finally reach the point where it’s done and released in theaters. As a result, we are going to be absolutely buried in rumors before all is said and done. Of course, shouldn’t we just ignore them and wait for the finished film to reveal all of its unspoiled surprises? Well, obviously, but have you met the internet?
Earlier this week, a bevy of rumors popped up, chief among them:
Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman will be…a Kryptonian?
RUMOR: Wonder Woman will be a descendent of the Kryptonians in Batman Vs. Superman:
“I’d bet a year’s pay – in MONOPOLY money, of course – that the ‘Amazons’ of this cinematic DCU will be descendants of those ‘ancient Kryptonians’ who attempted to set up Kryptonian outposts throughout spacedom thousands and thousands of years ago. Furthermore, I say that Wonder Woman will be powered-down, if you will, relative to Superman because these Amazons have evolved and adapted to living on Earth for hundreds of centuries. And since Kryptonians are produced without any “He’n and She’n” – Jor El and Lara excluded – couldn’t this original Kryptonian on Earth have used this reproductive science to create an all-female race? I say yes!”
SOURCE: BatmanOnFilm.com
ARE THEY A RELIABLE SOURCE?: They seem to be wrong just as often as they are right. For example, they’ve been predicting a Batman Beyond-style Batman film for quite a while now despite being continually proven wrong.
In the source article, BatmanOnFilm provided answers to questions posed in reader e-mails. Beyond the Wonder Woman thing:
- Is Lex Luthor in the movie? Is there another villian? “Yes. And sorry, I’m not at liberty to reveal the ID of the other villain at this time…but the character is highly rumored to be in the film.” That would indicate the other villain will be Doomsday.
- Has Momoa been cast to maybe play a Justice League member like Martian Manhunter or Aquaman? “Nope and nope. Neither of those characters are in this film.”
- Is this becoming in every way other than the title a glorified Justice League movie instead of a proper Man of Steel sequel? ”NOPE. It’s a Superman film – a Superman film that just so happens to include Batman and Wonder Woman – but a Superman film nonetheless.”
- How much screen time will Wonder Woman get? “On par with Scarlett Johansson’s first appearance as Black Widow in IRON MAN 2.”
Now, some of this flies in the face of what other sources have been reporting, and it’s worth noting that in a later response in the article BoF claims the new batsuit will feature Batman Beyond-like capabilities, which directly contradicts what every other source has said to this point. However, at the same time, some of it also corresponds to what many of us (myself included) had already guessed,namely the comparison of Wonder Woman in this movie to Black Widow in Iron Man 2. From all of it, though, the most headline-grabbing tidbit is BoF’s speculation as to a planned alternate origin for Wonder Woman in this film.
Listen, Wonder Woman’s origin is always going to present huge challenges to live-action adaptation. In the classic mythology, Wonder Woman was freakin’ formed out of clay; in the new 52 mythology, she is the bastard daughter of Zeus, and the “formed out of clay” thing was a lie she’d been led to believe most of her life. There is an element in the latter which worked beautifully with Loki in the first Thor, but even though it turned out he secretly had blue skin and was a mini version of something called a frost giant Loki’s “bastard son” tale translate better than a woman who was, and I repeat, at one point believed to have simply been created out of clay. So, I get wanting to try something different, but making her Kryptonian?
Wonder Woman being a badass in DC’s New 52
Devin Faraci of BadAssDigest.com pretty well summed up why some might take offense to making Wonder Woman a Kryptonian:
“How could you make Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess with incredible abilities and a rich history all her own based in a cool world of Greek myth, clearly subservient to the male superheroes in Batman vs Superman? By making her Supergirl, more or less, a Kryptonian whose power levels are lower than Superman’s.”
Of course, on this particular point BoF makes no reference to having any kind of inside source feeding them this intel. This appears to 100% be their guess as to how Wonder Woman will be used in the movie. The problem, though, is while there is no authority behind their conjecture it has the smell of the exact type of thing David S. Goyer would do after the way he altered the comic book Kryptonian mythos for Man of Steel. In other word, we shouldn’t trust this BoF-generated rumor, but we can’t escape the gnawing feeling that it totally sounds like something DC would do. In fact, JJ Abrams tried to do something similar over a decade ago with his horrible-though-this-close-to-getting-produced Superman: Flyby script which featured “Lex Luthor is…A KRYPTONIAN!” as its climactic big twist.
Why making Wonder Woman a Kryptonian could work -
- It would more seamlessly integrate Wonder Woman to the plot of the sequel by tying her origin to a plot element from Man of Steel, namely the ancient Kryptonians who tried and failed to establish outposts throughout the galaxy. Otherwise, just all of a sudden a practical Greek goddess will show up in the middle of the movie, burdening them with providing a back story that if based on her comics origins will have nothing to do with the plot of the movie.
Why making Wonder Woman a slightly less powered Kryptonian is a horrible idea -
- Wonder Woman is not inferior to Superman but instead his equal. Mess with that formula at your own peril.
- Wouldn’t that inherently make Wonder Woman a character whose identity is defined by Superman’s? Go that route at your own peril.
- The dramatic thrust of the finale of Man of Steel is that by killing Zod Superman truly became the last son of Krypton? So, isn’t that completely undercut if it turns out there was an island of Amazon woman on Earth this entire time who way back in the day actually came from Krypton? Also, if these women were around why the hell didn’t they spring up to help Superman fight Zod in Man of Steel? Just how de-powered could they be?
What would you do, though? Since Marvel was able to pull off Thor, do you think a faithful adaptation of Wonder Woman’s comic book back story could work on film? Or do you think this potential solution suggested by BoF is perhaps the best one possible? Ultimately, the true solution is that Wonder Woman’s story is so complicated she needs her own origin story film, ala Thor, not just getting shoehorned into a Batman/Superman movie. However, that ship has sailed at this point. Let us know what you think in the comments section.
Batman Vs. Superman (official title pending) is currently scheduled to come out July 7, 2015. Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, and Laurence Fishbourne are all confirmed to be returning, joined by Ben Affleck as Batman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Zack Snyder will again direct, this time from a script by David S. Goyer and Chris Terrior. Man of Steel producer and story writer Christopher Nolan is only involved as an Executive Producer meaning his involvement will be minimal at best.
