James Gunn Reveals a Surprising New Direction for Wonder Woman and the Amazons
The time has finally come for us to return to Themyscira. During James Gunn’s announcement for some of the upcoming DCU slate, he dropped news that the Amazons would be getting their own series. Described as Game of Thrones-esque, the series is going to be called Paradise Lost, which is a famous run of a Wonder Woman comic based on the poem of the same name by John Milton.
But where the new show is going to differ from what we might know is that we aren’t going to have a typical Wonder Woman story told to us. According to ComicBook.com, Gunn talked about the series to reporters and told them about the series and its origins, which would be more focused on how Themyscira came to be and more of Paradise Island’s origins over Diana’s.
“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. “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.”
This excites me for a number of reasons but number one being heading to Themyscira and spending time with the Amazons.
Exploring Themyscira
In both Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 we got to briefly look at Themyscira. In 1984, it was just to see the Amazonian games where Diana participated and was forced to lose to learn a lesson about “cheating” the system to get what she wanted. But in Wonder Woman, we saw the Amazons and what they could do against guns and weapons far more powerful than their own. However, that’s pretty much all we got. (I will be ignoring the depiction of the Amazons in Joss Whedon’s Justice League because no thank you and I’ve spoken about how I liked Zack Snyder’s take more.)
But spending time with the Amazons and learning how they came to be the society that would bring us Diana Prince? That’s something I want to explore. Making it a Game of Thrones style show tells me a few things about it: It could be violent, it’s about power, and we’ll learn a lot about the inner-workings of Paradise Island in a way we’ve never before.
What about Diana?
Right now, Gal Gadot isn’t out but she also isn’t fully part of the DCU. In the conversation that reporters had with Peter Safran and James Gunn, Safran said this about returning actors from the previously named DCEU: “There’s no reasons why all the people you mentioned, couldn’t be part of the DCU, we just haven’t decided what the story is that we want to tell that incorporates Shazam or Aquaman.”
James Gunn went on to say that they’ve all spoken and she’s up to doing stuff but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is still fully our Wonder Woman. One part about the DCU is that any character played in animation as part of the main DCU storyline (and not the Elseworld properties) is going to all be played by the same actor. Animation, television live-action, and films, all the same performers.
So if they did continue a Wonder Woman story with Gal Gadot, the idea is that she’d still probably be Diana through all those things (unless they finished the Wonder Woman trilogy as an Elseworlds thing).
It does seem though as if this Paradise Lost show is prior to Diana’s time. That’s different from the comics run, but it would give them more time to figure out what to do with Diana Prince.
What’s the difference with this show and the original Paradise Lost?
In the original run, there is a feud between Diana and Queen Hippolyta. Hippolyta wants Diana to be there for Themyscira but it is clashing with Diana’s place as Wonder Woman in the world of man. And so their feud fuels another feud between the Themysciran Amazons and their Bana-Mighdall Amazon sisters. From what we can tell of the James Gunn series, Diana might not even be involved (or at least not to the power she has in Wonder Woman).
So she could be in the show if they continue to follow the original plot of Paradise Lost but also a show about the Amazons is cool on its own. I do hope that this show means that Wonder Woman/Diana Prince is still of importance to the DCU and we will get to see her (whether or not she’s Gal Gadot) in the future.
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I’m very excited to see the future of the Amazons and Diana and until we know more, I’ll just theorize on what Paradise Lost will fully be.
(via ComicBook.com, featured image: Warner Bros.)
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