Nicolas Winding Refn looking to direct 'Wonder Woman' film
July 4th 2010 15:04
For the past ten years, Hollywood big wig producer Joel Silver (The Matrix, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout) had been trying to adapt the DC comics’ butt-kicking bomb shell superhero Wonder Woman. With several fresh names now circulating around the yet to be but inevitable adaptation, a most inviting surprise has emerged. Critically acclaimed Bronson director Nicolas Winding Refn has been showing strong interest in seriously helming a filmed version of Wonder Woman.
writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn
Normally, I would see this as the beginning of the end for any other decent director who’s early work showed promise (Joe Carnahan I’m thinking of you right now), but Danish writer/director is something of a special case, with an iconoclastically modern cult reputation, Refn sports the same kind of uniquely European vision that some of cinema’s greatest artists have put on display. Refn, who made his splash with a little stunning arthouse kick to the guts called Pusher immediately let everyone know that he was a artist to be respected. Following this up with the more low key Bleeder and then the Hubert Selby Jr. adaptation Fear X, both solid work from the Refn man, but also two of his least seen works. Refn would then return to his stomping ground with powerfully raw Pusher 2, which showed how much he had grown as an artist. He would then round things up with Pusher 3, one of the most graphically unsettling experiences of the this decade.
Having shaped one of the most impressively cinematic crime trilogy’s ever, one that took viewers so unflinchingly into the very heart of the beast, Refn suddenly changed styles entirely, shifting gears from the corrosiveness of Pusher trilogy’s cinema verite stylings all the way to the Avant Garde eccentricities of the massively praised Bronson, another film to once again explore a violent man, yet in a completely new way.
Bronson - Refn's 2009 success
Now doing press for his latest Viking film Valhalla Rising and getting in gear to shoot Drive starring Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, Lars and The Real Girl, The Notebook), it turns out that adapting Wonder Woman is where a hopeful success for Valhalla Rising and Drive could take him to.
I’m personally very curious to see this Europen artists take on a classic American comic book. Refn has established himself as one of the most respected film makers working today who could surely do something interesting with this material.
Who knows….he seems to think an adaptation by him might even rival Christopher Nolan’s Batman adaptations.
During an interview with Movieline.com, this is what he had to say.
I was pretty excited when I heard your name attached to something like Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman, I really want to make. That, I’m hoping, will be my $200 million extravaganza — if I even get close to it. That’s why I say, “Well, let me go make Drive. Let me start the ball rolling within the system".
I found this awesome comment on your IMDB page: “If you do wonder woman, don´t make her violent, like that cartoon, that i would never show my children. Wonder woman cut the head of an enemy in it…not so good to look at…” How would you respond to that?
I would say I could never do that, because I have kids myself who would go watch Wonder Woman. But one of the things I encounter is that a lot of people have more opinions about me than have actually seen my films.
Does that bother you?
[Pause] No, it’s fine. As long as I get to make what I make. I’m not really concerned about that. Certainly when I was younger I was vocal about things, and I didn’t mind sharing my opinion, and not always for the best reasons. Now that I’ve gotten a bit older and more relaxed, I’m a bit more at ease with things. Sometimes it annoys me that people have this idea that I make violent films. I don’t consider my films particularly violent compared to other films — films like The A-Team, where I don’t know how many people die in two hours. I think that my films can be veryviolating, so they can seem much more violent than they are. But it’s a different thing: Being violated is different than seeing violence.
It’s the context.
Yeah. And I guess in a way I’ve always felt that cinema, even though it’s a visual medium, is about subliminal images. It’s not about what we see; it’s about what we don’t see. That’s when it becomes effective.
Yet when you have something like a Wonder Woman movie, which is based on a brand, it’s pretty in-your-face. There’s nothing especially subliminal about it.
At the same time there is, because the real origin of Wonder Woman is: What if women were more powerful than men? What would the world be like? That’s a subliminal theme.
But knowing what we know about Hollywood, is that the only way you’d make that movie?
No, it’s not the only way, but I think that would be a starting point for looking at it. You need a great, extravagant, marketable action film — and everything that comes with it. But I think that when Christopher Nolan did the Batman movies, I think he very cleverly went back to the source material and took themes that had maybe not been exercised. And he was able to make very good and successful films with them. So I think the audience is very much out there. It’s just how you do it. And I think that some of the films that have worked over the years have worked for different reasons than people sometimes think they do.
And where Wonder Woman on one hand is a great female character who can be included in many great fight scenes, she doesn’t have great villains against her. OK, so you create some. She doesn’t have a Joker or those classic Batmankinds of guys. But she does have her whole world that she comes from, which is fascinating. The whole idea of a woman who is basically more powerful than any man — and who will always be that, and comes from a society of women who are more powerful than men — is an interesting theme that I think can be very contemporary.
Hollywood is also very weird about violence toward women. They put it out there all the time, yet seem to renounce the concept itself.
They try to justify it for ridiculous reasons. Which is interesting, because when they’re remaking all these ’70s and ’80s horror movies of exploitation material — which is very mean toward women — they always try to justify them to be released by major studios by changing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But it’s still essentially the same thing.
But if you were to show Wonder Woman in this context, getting pummeled by a male villain? Would it have to be a female villain to get your true point across?
Well, that’s when it gets interesting, because you have to create a great countervillain to her. They tried in Catwoman — with not particularly good results. The trick with Wonder Woman is to find that antagonist who worked so well in the Batman concept — his villains are equally if not more exciting than Batman himself. Here, it’s basically coming up with who would be a great counterpart to Wonder Woman. Is it her mother who’s the real enemy?
Something that’s biblical in a sense.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I was initially excited about this idea when I first read it a few weeks ago. Now, not so much because of these two responses:
"I would say I could never do that, because I have kids myself who would go watch Wonder Woman. But one of the things I encounter is that a lot of people have more opinions about me than have actually seen my films."
Sounds to me like he will not be bringing the edge of his other work. Worse still looking to cater to the wider audience and making it for kids of this generation instead of us older fanboys. There is lot of adult potential to mine in what Wonder Woman represents as character metaphor and he really doesn't seem to see this.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
You seem to have gone the other way. Look at this on the bright side, Gary Oldman did the same thing for his kids, taming the work he was in and it's pretty good, although domesticated.
My fear though is that, as Andre Tarkovsky once said, and I'm only paraphrasing, "any one you thinks 'oh I can just make this one fun film and then return to what is true in my heart' will always was be fooling themselves, once you alter your integrity, you will NEVER be able to return" - just look at Carnahan or any of the many other directors who asre an example of that. Lets hope this isnt the begining of the end for Refn! Maybe something will happen to persuade all this though.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Megan Fox??
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
I think she'd be terrible
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Monica will always be my ideal WW despite any age restriction
Also Olivia Williams, Lena Heady or Michelle Forbes could be interesting too, if not a little mature for Hollywood.
If the younger generation is pulled in, maybe Summer Glau could do it with some hair dye
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
I figured this out yesterday. Enter your comment - (which you have already) - then after its been added click modify and it will modify it in a new page which has the same appearance as when you do an original post and just enter a picture the same way as you do in your own posts.
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
"To create a fully formatted comment please click here" which is located just beside "Add a Comment"
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
So here you go then!
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Olivia Munn looks like a dork in these photos - she doesnt wear that costume well at all. Way too self conscious
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile