Connie Nielsen Thinks "It's Crazy" That Wonder Woman 3 Was Shelved

Posted in: Movies, Warner Bros, Wonder Woman | Tagged: connie nielsen, wonder woman 3

Connie Nielsen Thinks "It's Crazy" That Wonder Woman 3 Was Shelved

Gladiator II star Connie Nielsen thinks "it's crazy" that Wonder Woman 3 was shelved, and "I mean, frankly, I don't understand it."

Published Fri, 11 Oct 2024 23:07:07 -0500
by Kaitlyn Booth
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Article Summary

• Connie Nielsen finds it "crazy" that Wonder Woman 3 was shelved, baffled by the decision to cancel it.
• Nielsen praises the first film's success and sees potential wasted by not continuing the franchise.
• Wonder Woman 3 was scrapped as James Gunn and Peter Safran reshape the DC Universe.
• Nielsen highlights the cultural significance and beloved elements of Wonder Woman's cinematic world.

When everything at Warner Bros. and DC Studios was restructured, there were a couple of projects people thought were pretty safe. There were the ones that were already pretty far along in development and ones that were just smart enough to keep on the books. However, if there was one thing from the Zack Snyder era that people thought would carry over to the new era, it was Wonder Woman. The first film was a cultural moment we hadn't seen in a while, and while it falls apart in the third act, that second act is the thing of dreams. We can say a lot about that second film. It didn't work in the end, but it was certainly doing something on its own terms. It was a victim of the pandemic, so we'll never know if it could have found an audience at the box office. In August 2023, word officially came down that Wonder Woman 3 was no longer in active development. Since then, various cast members have spoken about the film getting canceled, and Connie Nielsen is the latest. She's currently doing press for Gladiator II, but Den of Geek asked her about Wonder Woman 3 getting shelved, and the decision baffled her.

"I think it's crazy. I mean, frankly, I don't understand it," Nielsen explained. "[Wonder Woman] made $800 million just in the movie theaters, and it has an enormous and passionate, passionate fan base. These are spectacular films, and there's just no reason I can understand whatsoever for not investing in that. If I were a business person, I would say that's money on the table. It's right there. Plus, every time we've done it, [it was] with budgets that were way smaller than any of the other DC budgets."

Nielsen went on to praise everything about the world of Wonder Woman and how they even built this world from the idea of women that really existed. She said, "I loved that island, those costumes, those characters, the values that those Amazons represented. It was fantastic. I built that character off real historical and anthropology books on the Amazons, there's now real DNA evidence that these Amazons really did exist, that there really were famous female warriors, and we now know that burial mounds were where those warriors were buried. They just assumed it was a man because of who the person was buried with. And now they realize, oh, no, DNA analysis shows they were women."

Like other cast members involved with this series, Nielsen seemed to love what they put on screen, not just the parts she played. Nielsen got to reprise her role as Queen Hippolyta in Justice League, but that was the last time we saw her. That scene was one of the better ones in that mess of a film, so she went out on a high note.

Wonder Woman 3 is currently dead in the water, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that James Gunn and Peter Safran want to create their own corner of the DC Universe without the baggage of the previous universe. It makes sense on multiple levels; Wonder Woman is one of the lone bright spots in a messy cinematic universe, but it is still a bummer that the one thing that [sort of] worked isn't being given the chance it deserves when there is so much potential. Nielsen said, "It's a pity. I really hope that they change their minds, and that they realize this is crazy. This is a billion dollars that is lying on the table. Not claiming those fans and making them happy is something I just don't really understand at all." We'll see Diana on the big screen again someday, but it'll be someone new driving the invisible jet and wielding the Lasso of Truth. However, we still have that No Man's Land scene, and that's worth everything.

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