Wonder Woman 3 is reportedly not in development, despite actor Gal Gadot’s comments from earlier this week. As per Variety’s sources, new DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran don’t have any plans for a Wonder Woman project, besides the Paradise Lost prequel series that was announced for Max (previously HBO Max), as part of its revamped DC Universe slate. Word about a threequel spread like wildfire when Gadot claimed in a pre-SAG-AFTRA strike interview that the aforementioned parties had privately confirmed the film’s development to her.
That statement was then emphasised in a profile she did for Flaunt magazine, promoting her newly released Netflix film Heart of Stone. “I was invited to a meeting with James Gunn and Peter Safran and what they told me, and I’m quoting: ‘You’re in the best hands. We’re going to develop Wonder Woman 3 with you. [We] love you as Wonder Woman — you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ So time will tell,” she said. The Variety report, however, claims that nothing of the sort was promised to Gadot and even so, there was no definitive discussion of whether she would be reprising her role in the new DCU. Gadot first appeared as the Amazonian princess in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, before branching off into two standalone Wonder Woman films. She also had a cameo in The Flash, but that movie was a reset point for the universe. Also, they were made before Gunn and Safran joined the studio.
Both Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 were helmed by Patty Jenkins, who back in December, submitted a screenplay for a third untitled movie, co-written with Geoff Johns (Suicide Squad). However, the character’s vision/ treatment did not align with the vision Gunn and Safran had planned for the overhaul and therefore, got cancelled. That report, too, broke after Gadot had made positive claims on her Twitter handle, about her return with a third film. While production costs weren’t a concern for Warner Bros. at the time, they could end up saving ‘tens of millions of dollars’ by straight-up cancelling Wonder Woman 3.
Even the DC Comics presentation in January from Gunn did not mention another Wonder Woman film, instead announcing a Paradise Lost series that would serve as an origins story for the mysterious locale inhabited and governed by Amazonian women. The show will focus on the drama and political intrigue behind the society to explore its rules and the lore behind the banishment of all men from the island nation of Themyscira. “It’s almost like Game of Thrones with Westeros, but with all of the inhabitants of Paradise Island,” Gunn described, at the time.