Wonder Woman 1984: Patty Jenkins Really Made an 80s Movie

Wonder Woman 1984 is not only set in the year of 1984 but it sends its audience to such a time period during their viewing. The film is set to be released in movie theaters and on HBO Max later this month, giving DC Comics fans their first fix of movies since Birds of Prey earlier this year. However, it's the follow-up to the hugely successful and widely beloved Wonder Woman movie of 2017. With director Patty Jenkins re-teaming with star Gal Gadot to bring the iconic character back to the big screen, Jenkins saw an opportunity to do something different. Not only does the movie look like it is set in an eighties era with its costume and set designs but the editing and cinematography truly conveys the look of a movie from the era in which then movie is set.

"That's exactly what I strived to do," Jenkins said on a Zoom call with ComicBook.com on Friday. "I kept saying to everybody, because it's funny, I was worried, we weren't giving people enough eighties because the temptation is to go '80s, haha!' and make all these eighties jokes and put in eighties tracks. I was like, 'I shouldn't have eighties tracks because when you do that, you're automatically being self-referential.' Whereas, "I remember." I said, 'You should not remember anything about this movie.' This should be as if you're going to a massive temple in the eighties, that's completely authentic. So throw away the eighties part of it, it ends up being very eighties as a result of it, but just throw that away and make a great movie.

In the now crowded genre of super hero films from Marvel, DC, and others, Jenkins saw an opportunity to do something unique with a blockbuster title which hasn't been done in today's era. The success of the first Wonder Woman earned her the trust from the studio to swing for the fences. "People are making all kinds of great movies, but I do miss those big, big, huge whole family films," Jenkins says. "And I thought, why not seize the day on the heels of a successful film where they're letting us get away with it to try to aim for the sky and like do the biggest visual thing you can possibly do."

One moment in particular will flip the script not only on eighties movie cliches but also a sequence from the first Wonder Woman movie from Jenkins and Gadot. Rather than Diana Prince being another woman put through a montage of trying on outfits, Chris Pine's Steve Trevor is the fish out of water being acclimated to a new era who has to go through various outfits to see how he looks and feels.

"It's almost like a funny relationship moment too, where it's like, the guy could say to the girl, like 'You take forever getting dressed,' and then the shoe is on the other foot," Jenkins says of the sequence. "He's very picky about what he's going to wear, too! And so we thought it was hilarious."

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Wonder Woman 1984 hits theaters and HBO Max on December 25.