Wonder Woman Producer Details How The Film Changed Over Time

Wonder Woman has finally received her own feature film more than 75 years after the character debuted in the pages of All Star Comics #8, completing a massive journey in the character’s long-running history.

Though the story recounts the hero’s origins before debuting in last year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the process of making the film was challenging for the people behind the camera. Though Patty Jenkins always had a version of this particular story in mind, producers of the film were debating the best plot of the film before she became attached to the project.

Warner Bros. producer Charles Roven, who has had a hand in almost every DC Comics project since Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, spoke with Collider about the scripting phase for Wonder Woman and the how the film changed before it finally became the version playing in theaters.

“Really early on, before Patty came on the project, we put our toe in the water with two writers,” Roven said. “They took completely different approaches on the material—one was the Crimean War and one was World War I, but a completely different World War I experience. We had quite a Writers Guild arbitration with a number of writers because we had a lot of writers, and then there were the preceding writers and the other incarnations of the development of Wonder Woman.”

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Roven said the studio passed on those different versions before they started developing the story we’d eventually see on screen.

“But for our Wonder Woman we didn’t like the ultimate take on those scripts, even though they’re talented guys, and Zack [Snyder] and Allan Heinberg then collaborated on a story,” Roven said. “We had a different director on at that time, and that director—which was OK’d by the studio—brought a number of writers on. We had more writers working with—everybody had knowledge because you can’t do it with the Writers Guild without telling everybody what you’re doing and everybody has to be OK—but we had more writers working at the same time than I’ve ever done. In the history of all the movies that I’ve done, it never worked out that way before.”

With such an arduous process before a script was even settled, it’s kind of a wonder (get it?) that the film has been as well received as it is. But given the finished project, it’s hard not to heap praise on the script beautifully actualized by director Jenkins and star Gal Gadot.

Wonder Woman is in theaters now.

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MORE WONDER WOMAN NEWS: Patty Jenkins Reveals Wonder Woman’s Age /Is Wonder Woman Too Similar to Captain America: The First Avenger? / Wonder Woman Comic Book Stories to Read Before The Movie / Wonder Woman Director, Cast Describe What Appeals to Them About the Characters

Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.

Joining Gal Gadot in the international cast are Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner and Saïd Taghmaoui. Patty Jenkins directs the film from a screenplay by Allan Heinberg and Geoff Johns, story by Zack Snyder and Allan Heinberg, based on characters from DC Entertainment. Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston.

The film is produced by Charles Roven, Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder and Richard Suckle, with Rebecca Roven, Stephen Jones, Wesley Coller and Geoff Johns serving as executive producers. Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with RatPac-Dune Entertainment, an Atlas Entertainment/Cruel and Unusual production, Wonder Woman.