Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman

At the time she was cast for the part in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Lucy Lawless was a miner and sometime set hand. What happened what that during filming in the town she had been living in, the woman originally cast for the part (Claudia Black, of Farscape fame!) had come down with a bad case of dysentery and had to be airlifted to the hospital. Sam Raimi and company were in dire straits, and Lucy came up and read for the for the newly opened part on a dare. The rest is history.

However, if they had done the Wonder Woman movie as I suggested in the early 1990's, Warner Brothers would have paid a lot more money to Lawless than the production company that was producing Hercules: The Legendary Journeys at the time. The result: Xena stays a relatively minor character and is "killed off" in the Hercules TV series continuity before Lawless goes off to do the Wonder Woman movie.
 
In some respects the impact such a film would have on other franchises is more intriguing than the film itself. Regardless of whether the film is a flop or hit such a project means that he will not be able to direct the avengers. If it's successful he's tied up with Wonder Woman 2. If it fails-he's too big of a risk from Marvel's perspective. I know Marvel has been accused of becoming a bit of an assembly-line-the film will be different without Whedon.

If successful this means the alleged "no jokes" rule at Warner Brothers does not happen.

If it's really successful Whedon might be in the room during the discussions of how WB should reboot Superman which they needed to do in the timeframe they did for a number of contractual reasons.

Whedon is more of a Marvel guy. I think he actually wrote for them at one point-so you could argue that he'd be the wrong man for a D.C. franchise.

A lot depends on how the film does. It has to not only be successful it has to be successful by Hollywood accounting standards for a franchise to start.
 
If successful this means the alleged "no jokes" rule at Warner Brothers does not happen.

If it's really successful Whedon might be in the room during the discussions of how WB should reboot Superman which they needed to do in the timeframe they did for a number of contractual reasons.

Whedon is more of a Marvel guy. I think he actually wrote for them at one point-so you could argue that he'd be the wrong man for a D.C. franchise.

There IS a two year gap in his bio following graduation, but IDK. I would think that if he had been writing for them (I'm assuming you mean the comics, as there was nothing else for Marvel back then) Marvel Comics would be touting those stories as collector's items, even if his role was as a minor contributor (get us some donuts, Josh:D).
 
There IS a two year gap in his bio following graduation, but IDK. I would think that if he had been writing for them (I'm assuming you mean the comics, as there was nothing else for Marvel back then) Marvel Comics would be touting those stories as collector's items, even if his role was as a minor contributor (get us some donuts, Josh:D).

You mean aside from his run on Astonishing X-Men, right? ;) That began in 2004, so it would have been in the geek consciousness when WW the Movie came out.
 
However, if they had done the Wonder Woman movie as I suggested in the early 1990's, Warner Brothers would have paid a lot more money to Lawless than the production company that was producing Hercules: The Legendary Journeys at the time. The result: Xena stays a relatively minor character and is "killed off" in the Hercules TV series continuity before Lawless goes off to do the Wonder Woman movie.

All this happened in 1995.* I would call it the mid 90s by then.


*The part of Xena had been created specifically for Lawless a few months after this. The part that was originally meant for Claudia Black was as a Greek mother(Lyla) of a Centaur foal, in the episode "The Outcast." Then Bruce Seth Green raved about how wonderful Ms. Lawless had been to work with. It just so happened that "The Warrior Princess" and "The Gauntlet" were shown first due to needing much less work in postproduction. By the time "The Guantlet" has aired, she had signed the standard seven year contract and her salary would have become the cheapest aspect of Warner Brothers' dealings with her. Any path to fortune and fame for Lucy Lawless as an actress during the Mid-Nineties has to come through Universal Studios and Renaissance Pictures.
 
In some respects the impact such a film would have on other franchises is more intriguing than the film itself. Regardless of whether the film is a flop or hit such a project means that he will not be able to direct the avengers. If it's successful he's tied up with Wonder Woman 2. If it fails-he's too big of a risk from Marvel's perspective. I know Marvel has been accused of becoming a bit of an assembly-line-the film will be different without Whedon.

That's a good point. Who would Marvel look to if not Whedon?
 
That's a good point. Who would Marvel look to if not Whedon?

Hard to say. Marvel Studios' decision to hire Whedon to direct their largest project was in some respects an odd choice as others have noted. Though the Marvel films have their assembly line instinct-for whatever reason they tend to like to make unique-and arguably risky-decisions as far as who will direct their films.

All of which suggests that if Whedon wasn't available-they would hire someone to direct the Avengers who we wouldn't expect to be directing a project like that-so by definition I'm not sure we can know who that might be.

It's easy to forget now-after the Avengers was a massive success-how much of a left field choice Whedon was. Which probably explains a large part of the reason why Wonder-Woman wasn't made.
 
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