There’s a lot of excitement and intrigue around the future of the DC Universe, especially now that DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran have announced their plans for the franchise. One of the biggest questions has been exactly which actors from the existing big-screen canon will stay in their roles, especially as the saga is recasting some characters and sticking with others. Gal Gadot’s take on Diana Prince / Wonder Woman is among the portrayals whose future remains unclear, especially now that Patty Jenkins’ iteration of Wonder Woman 3 is not moving forward. Gunn and Safran recently teased that the door is open for Gadot to continue appearing in the franchise — but if that’s not the case, the newly-announced Paradise Lost series could be the perfect way to explain her recasting.
What is Paradise Lost about?
The HBO Max-exclusive series is described as a Game of Thrones-style take on Wonder Woman’s home of Themyscira, which will dive into the politics and relationships among its all-female society.
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“This is a Game of Thrones-type story about the atmosphere of Paradise Island, home of the Amazons and the birthplace of Wonder Woman,” Gunn said during a presentation unveiling the slate to reporters. “And this involves all the darkness and drama and political intrigue behind this society of only women. It’s an origin story of, how did this society women come about? What does it mean? What are their politics like? What are their rules? Who’s in charge? What are all the games that they play with each other to get to the top? I think it’s a really exciting thing.”
How would Paradise Lost help recast Wonder Woman?
It’s unclear at this point exactly how wide of a span of time Paradise Lost will cover — whether it will dive into the very early history of the Amazons’ relationship with the Old Gods, the generation of heroines like Hippolyta that predated Diana, or some combination of the two. But regardless, the very concept of Paradise Lost allows for more of Themyscira’s lore to be explored. In particular, it certainly couldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the show could tackle the weird, conflicting nature of how Amazonian children are born. While early comics established that Diana was born when Hippolyta literally sculpted her out of clay, the New 52 briefly retconned that she was born out of a relationship between Hippolyta and Zeus. The specifics of that have been debated about basically ever since, with many fans leaning more towards the clay origin, while Jenkins’ Wonder Woman movies went the opposite direction and established a connection to Zeus.
If it wanted to, Paradise Lost could easily lean into the fantastical nature of the clay origins, and explain why they’re a significant part of the Amazons’ mythos. That could easily, down the line, provide an opportunity to show Hippolyta crafting Diana out of clay — a moment that would undoubtedly be poignant, for comic fans and viewers of the show alike. Literally molding Diana out of clay would also narratively explain why, in the present day, her face looks a little different from what we’ve come to recognize with Gadot.
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