Corona | Coming Attractions

Warner Bros. has released the first still of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. The public will get a brief glimpse of the heroine in the upcoming Batman v Superman trailer.

Heightened from her role as street racer Gisele Harabo in the Fast and the Furious movies, Gal Gadot has landed the role as Wonder Woman. She will make her first appearance as the Amazonian princess in Batman v Superman before emerging as the lead character in her own film, set for release in the summer of 2017.

Michael Goldenberg has experience writing the big screen adventures of DC Comics heroes. Goldenberg is one of the credited writers that worked on last summer's Green Lantern movie, and now he's been hired to write a new screenplay for a Wonder Woman feature film.

The writer's other credits include Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Contact and Peter Pan.

Costume designer Shawna Trpcic posted four sketches for the heroine's costumes from the aborted Whedon WW movie. They're an interesting look at what could have been. [Full story]

Joss Whedon has confirmed rumors that he is no longer shepherding the Wonder Woman movie. In a post to his official blog, the filmmaker writes:

"You (hopefully) heard it here first: I'm no longer slated to make Wonder Woman. What? But how? My chest... so tight! Okay, stay calm and I'll explain as best I can. It's pretty complicated, so bear with me. I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked. Hey, not that complicated.

"Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional. We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don't think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk. I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.

"The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the studio just keeps hammering out changes and the writer falls into a horrible limbo of development. These guys had the clarity and grace to skip that part. So I'm a free man."

Warner Bros. has purchased a spec Wonder Woman screenplay by the writing team of Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland. The studio claims that they purchased the script, which has its action taking place during World War II, to prevent the possibility of similarities between the non-commissioned screenplay and the currently gestating Wonder Woman storyline.

Legally, Warner Bros. should be 100% in the clear unless someone involved with the WW film read the Jennison/Strickland screenplay. That could open Silver Pictures or WB up to future legal action if there are similarities between the spec screenplay and the Wonder Woman movie.

The rumors panned out. Today it was announced by Warner Bros. that Joss Whedon has signed a deal to write and direct the Wonder Woman movie. Joel Silver and Leonard Goldberg will produce the film.

"There's no one better than Joss to adapt the legendary Wonder Woman comic book character created in the 1940s into a dynamic feature film for 21st century audiences," producer Joel Silver said in a company issued statement. "Wonder Woman was the first great female superhero to emerge from comic books and later inspire millions of fans in her television incarnation, but unlike her counterparts Batman and Superman, this groundbreaking heroine has yet to be reinvented for the feature film arena."

"Wonder Woman is the most iconic female heroine of our time, but in a way, no one has met her yet," said Whedon. "What I love most about icons is finding out what's behind them, exploring the price of their power. When Joel and I began discussing the character, I realized there is a woman behind the legend who is very fascinating, very uncompromising, and in her own way, almost vulnerable. She's someone who doesn't belong in this world, and since everyone I know feels that way about themselves, the character clicked for me."

"We are excited about working with Joss," added Warner Bros. Pictures' President of Production Jeff Robinov. "He brings great energy and creativity to the process. His work on Buffy makes him uniquely qualified to handle the Wonder Woman character."

Now the speculation begins as to which actress will play the Amazonian princess...

According to a scoop report published by Ain't It Cool News, Firefly/Serenity creator Joss Whedon is supposedly in final negotiations with Warner Bros. to write and direct a Wonder Woman feature film -- if 20th Century Fox doesn't sign him to direct X-Men 3, that is. While AICN cautions their readers that the scoop could prove to be a hoax, the scooper states that "this could break in the trades any day."

Is Fox now after The Joss to direct the third X-Men film? Does Warner Bros. want the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to bring their Amazonian princess to the silver screen? Stay tuned for more as we know about it!

In semi-related news, there's at least one actress that's currently making it known that she wants to don the golden bracelets in a Wonder Woman film. While promoting her latest work in The Phantom of the Opera, actress Minnie Driver told Sci Fi Wire that she would love to play the DC Comics heroine. After all, it's been a childhood dream of Driver's since she watched Lynda Carter in the Wonder Woman TV series. "Come on, she's heaven, and she was so sexy," Driver told the site. "Even though I didn't have blue eyes, at a stretch I thought I could possibly grow up to be her, whereas I could never have grown up to be Lindsay Wagner [who played the Bionic Woman]. Do you know what I mean?"

 Last week former Buffy the Vampire SLayer and Angel cast member Charisma Carpenter spoke with TV Guide and revealed that she would "kill" to be the major motion picture version of Wonder Woman.

"I am actively putting it out there that I want to do Lynda Carter," Carpenter told TV Guide. "It's my mission to be Wonder Woman! My agent hasn't seen a script, but some studio needs to do it. She's beautiful, she fights, and I like the concept of an empowerment role."

And now hot on the heels of Carpenter's interest in playing the Amazonian princess, Britain's Daily Star tabloid is reporting (according to a mysterious "insider") that Buffy Summer herself is Charisma's competition. Supposedly Sarah Michelle Gellar is the top candidate to play Wonder woman...again, according to the tabloid.

The Wonder Woman movie project remains in development at Silver Pictures. 

Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis is the latest scribe to be asked to turn Wonder Woman into a viable movie franchise. Kalogridis was hired by Warner Bros. to adapt the Birds of Prey comic series into a TV series for The WB, which then aired last year on the network before being cancelled.

Look up the definition of development hell and you'll probably find the Wonder Woman feature film listed there. The project has had a succession of writers come in, write a script, then be replaced by a new writer year after year. The project is still under the wing of Matrix producer Joel Silver at WB.

According to Variety, Kalogridis is going back to the superheroine's roots and will tell the Amazonian princess origin story but set in the modern day.

Comics2Film at CBR reports that there's a new screenwriter working on the Wonder Woman film. Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey) has replaced Philip Levens as that project's writer only a few short months after Levens got the job.

Kalogridis has worked before on comic book-related film properties in Hollywood. She submitted an early draft of X-Men back before Bryan Singer became attached to that project; more recently she's worked on polishing WB's Catwoman script and served as a writer and executive producer of The WB's Birds of Prey.

Joel Silver has been developing Wonder Woman at Warner Bros. No talent is attached to play the Amazonian princess.

Industry trade magazine Variety has confirmed last week's Comics2Film story that the new writer working on the Wonder Woman film is Philip Levens. Levens has been a staff writer on The WB's Smallville for the past two years.

Comics2 Film/CBR News has learned that there's a new screenwriter onboard Warner Bros. Wonder Woman project. The new scribe is a Smallville writer named Philip Levens.

According to the website, Levens is bowing out of his dayjob for the next year to concentrate writing the WW feature script. Joel Silver remains onboard as the film's producer.

Hey Warner Bros., listen up. Enough star Jennifer Lopez told MTV recently that if she could be any superhero she would like to be Wonder Woman. "I kind of look like Wonder Woman right now," added the singer/actress.

Fanboy Planet caught up with actress Eliza Dushku and asked the emerging star what, if any, truth was behind the rumor she was pegged to play the big-screen version of Wonder Woman. "Total rumor," said Dushku, adding that it more than likely got its start "Probably [from] some internet guy." Did we forget to mention they've got a picture of Eliza in a wet bikini on Fanboy Planet?