For good reason, Patty Jenkins is finally getting the acclaim she deserves for Wonder Woman, years after the director helped Charlize Theron to her first Best Actress Oscar award for Monster. And while Jenkins may now be leading the charge for female directors to get behind more superhero movies, those who have been paying attention know this wasn't her first go 'round with the genre. She was initially Marvel's first choice to direct Thor: The Dark World, but was soon after replaced by Alan Taylor, who disliked the experience so much he practically quit in the middle of it. Ultimately, it was probably Marvel's most forgettable movie. What was it about again?
So Jenkins may have escaped that one, which is great because it left her free from the baggage that comes with a troubled production. And now, in her conversation with Indiewire, she has revealed that her plans for the film would have been involved “a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque space opera,” that would have led to Thor and Jane Foster breaking up for good.
“It was painful and sad because I really loved those guys and I loved the idea of us making a ‘Thor’ together, but it’s one of those things,” she said. "You have to make sure that the movie you want to make is fully the right movie for that studio too. It was heartbreaking, but I also knew that it was [a] good [decision]. I knew that it was [a] good [decision] because I didn’t think I could make a great film out of their script."
Jenkins also had her eye on the bigger picture, recognizing that if a female director made a bad superhero movie it would impact all women directors looking to follow in her footsteps...
“If I do it, and it’s what I think it’s gonna be, I can’t help the fact that it will represent women directors everywhere, and then that’s going to be bad for everybody. As heartbreaking as it was, I was also like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t do something I don’t believe in, in that big of a scale.’ I knew that that was going to set [not only] me back, but also women directors back.”
Smart move on her part, because look at where she is now. Wonder Woman hits theaters tomorrow, and you might want to check it out.
