Wonder Woman news, talk, and possible spoilers

Super Ordinary Guy · 07-01-2006, 05:10 PM

I have decided to create an unofficial Wonder Woman thread in the Movie forum. Out of all the Superhero movies that I know are coming out, this is the one that I am most hyped about. Hence, whenever there is new news to report, I am going to post it. If anyone would like to add news, feel free to do so. Instead of creating a new thread every time, I will just update this one. For those who don't remember, I posted some info about Wonder Woman in the "What Superhero movies would you like to see" thread here. To catch up, please visit that thread. To summarize, I am a huge Joss Whedon fan. He was the creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, and a script doctor for movies such as Toy Story, and Speed. He is also the writer for the Astonishing X-men comic books. Due to his work on Buffy, he seems to be a great candidate to etch the story of the Amazonian Princess.

Priyanka Chopra negotiating for Wonder Woman role link here. Now, like myself, you're probably wondering. "Who the heck is this woman!?" Here is the official Priyanka Chopra website. She was born July 18th, 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar-India and is 5'7½". She attended high school in Boston Mass., and attended and graduated from John F. Kennedy HS in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Under achievements in her profile, it mentions some of the charity work she has done in the USA and India. She is also "Miss World 2000." Images of Priyanka Chopra here Besides being a former beauty queen, she has also been in quite a few Bollywood (India) movies. Apparently, she has even won a few awards for her roles. Wikipedia's Priyanka Chopra page here. At wikipedia, it mentions that she received death threats for participating in beauty pageants since they were banned in her home area (the state of Uttar Pradesh in India). There is also speculation that the Miss World competition was rigged that year. Also at wikipedia are the movie awards she has won and has been nominated for.

In my humble opinion, what makes her great for the role of Princess Diana (WW)? She is a relative unknown, but she does have movie experience. She is not an American. Since she is from a different culture originally, she has a good concept of interesting quirks in the culture of the USA. This becomes an important factor in an origin story. I am guessing that her English is pretty good, since she has attended high school here. Although it could be horrible if she has an accent that is half Indian, half Bostonian.

She also has a history of charity work, so wanting to help people should come in handy when creating the character of Diana. I don't know if she will be a good choice, but here are at least the reasons to be optimistic.

As for me, I am off to buy my first comic and later to listen to some Stargate SG-1 commentaries! Chao!

Sam · 07-01-2006, 06:05 PM

How about Charisma Carpenter? I'm not sure about her acting ability, but she has the body for the role.

And remember, Whedon does like to work with familiar faces...

cabri · 07-02-2006, 05:46 AM

Rumor has it that one or more of Priyanka's people fooled IMDb into adding that bit about her possibly being the future WW for PR purposes.

In the past Whedon has unequivocally (more or less) stated that he won't even think about casting until after the studio okays the script -- and he still hasn't submitted it. He just finished the 2nd draft a week or two ago.

notreallysuperman · 07-02-2006, 06:13 AM

Yeah sounds like all those "rumors" are more the work of PR people. lol

Super Ordinary Guy · 07-02-2006, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cabri

Rumor has it that one or more of Priyanka's people fooled IMDb into adding that bit about her possibly being the future WW for PR purposes.

In the past Whedon has unequivocally (more or less) stated that he won't even think about casting until after the studio okays the script -- and he still hasn't submitted it. He just finished the 2nd draft a week or two ago.

I HATE making mistakes!

I am now an ardent Priyanka hater.

IMDb has since removed the little tidbit that caused so much of a commotion. The rumor really spread! Apparently, the rumor even reached Whedonesque but wasn't taken down before slice of sci-fi or comicbookmovie.com reported it. I remembered Whedon stating the above in one of the articles I read, but the choice of someone relatively unknown and not from the USA seemed to be perfect. News just moves so slowly with Wonder Woman. Sorry I got stir crazy. :oops: I wouldn't be surprised if someone from India wasn't picked however.

I really don't like the idea of Charisma Carpenter as WW. She might not be as annoying as her character on Buffy or Angel was, but she played a very similar character on a few episodes of Charmed. Because of this, I really have concerns over her acting range. If WW acts like Cordelia Chase, it will make a horrible movie. I don't know, Charisma's voice is just so grating IMHO. Now, there are apparently a lot of people who hate the idea of Whedon being behind the film, and are threatening to boycott the movie if Charisma isn't made the Princess in the movie, so I could get severely flamed for my opinion of Charisma. One more reason, with Joel Silver behind this movie, there is speculation that they are trying to build a movie franchise for Princess Diana. With this in mind, all things being equal, the studio will be more interested in going for a younger actress. Now, Charisma isn't old, but in Hollywood terms she is.

I'm biased because I am still rooting for Morena Baccarin.

I know she can act. As Inara Serra on Firefly she had a very perceptible inner strength and was a strong presence in a room without even needing to speak. That character also showed a concern for others. She is an exotic beauty from Brazil, who moved to New York at the age of ten. Therefore, remembering the culture shock she experienced could significantly help her for the role of an Amazonian Princess. It has been rumored that she took her recent gig on Stargate SG-1, it might cause scheduling conflicts with the movie. However, I think Stargate would work around that, especially if it meant keeping a possible film star on the payroll.

cabri · 07-05-2006, 02:28 AM

The big rap against Morena has always been that she's not an Amazon; but while she's not really tall, she is 5'7" which is a good 3 inches above average. She's a bit slight for the role but I'm sure she'd go through some sort of training too.

I think it's more of a problem that she hasn't shown a really great range yet. There are moments in Firefly when I really want to smack her for her singsong delivery, but she was also pretty new so you have to give her credit for growing through the series. To me it depends a lot on how she handles working wwith the people on SG1 -- they're all strong and established personalities, so she'll have her hands full standing out.

As far as Whedonesque, they deleted 8 or 9 new posts regarding Priyanka before they let that one through. I think they finally allowed it just to let people know they know and that it was fake.

But my personal choice which isn't even mentioned most of the time is Katherine Heigl. She's a good actress -- she's done great on both Roswell and Grey's Anatomy -- and certainly an Amazon and has had dark hair before. But like I said, her WW army of supporters currently numbers approximately 1.