Wonder Woman
A live-action version of the classic comic book character Wonder Woman has been in the works for ages, worked on by many different writers ever since producer Joel Silver (The Matrix) picked up the project in the early 00s.
A strong early contender for the role of Wonder Woman was Sandra Bullock, though, in a frightening lack of imagination, Xena’s Lucy Lawless was also considered.
The project picked up major steam (and buzz) when Joss Whedon was hired to write and direct the project in 2005, but the Buffy wunderkind left the project in early 2007 in frustration with studio .
“I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked,” Whedon wrote at the time. “Hey, not that complicated. Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional. We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that’s never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time.”
In 2007, before Whedon left the project, Silver came upon an unsolicited spec script written by two little-known writers, Brent Strickland and Matthew Jennison. At the time, Silver said, “That was a script that came about. It had some good ideas in it but I didn’t want it floating around, so we took it off the market [by buying it]. It was a period movie and I really don’t want to do that.”
But Silver kept the writers on the project. It’s since been reworked with a contemporary setting, though it keeps the “origin” story on Paradise Island. The film still has no finished script, nor star or director attached; Silver mentioned mentioned the Wachoski brothers (The Matrix) as a possibility in April 2008, but this was prior to the disasterous release of Speed Racer.
Still, the film is considered actively in pre-production and is now tentatively scheduled for release in 2011.
A separate movie featuring the character of Wonder Woman, Warner Brothers’ The Justice League, is on indefinite hiatis.
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Buffy was, of course, a feature film prior to its TV series incarnation, which came about, in part, because creator Joss Whedon had been so disappointed by the 1992 execution of his original screenplay.
According to Variety, the series almost did become a second feature film back in 1998. Rumors have surfaced regularly since then, before and after the series finally ended in 2003, but the principles, including Whedon, have sounded decidedly lackluster at best, determined to establish for themselves some non-Buffy-related success.
In November 2008, the rumors exploded again when several international newspapers reported that a Buffy movie was in the works, especially in light of the success of Twilight.
Alas, it is not to be. Last week, IFMagazine reported Whedon as saying, “There’s not going to be [a Buffy movie]. That’s the update. Nobody has ever broached the subject from the studio side. I think everybody is busy working. I mean, I think it probably won’t happen. That’s my guess. The landscape changes constantly, but until someone who has millions and billions of dollars asks me that question, the answer is pretty much the same.”
Xena: Warrior Princess
Fans of female-oriented fantasy have been unrelenting in their desire to see a film version of the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess, now a cult classic, that ran in syndication from 1995 to 2001. During star Lucy Lawless’ recent appearances on Celebrity Duets, fans even held up a big banner that read, “Xena movie!”
And sure enough, all of the series’ principles — Lawless and co-star Renee O’Connor, as well as co-creator Rob Tapert — have expressed a strong interest in the project. But they don’t control the rights, so have been unable to proceed.
“That’s a Universal question,” Tapert told SciFi.com in October. “Meaning [NBC] Universal … Television [Group]. I don’t control the strings…We said long ago that we’d love to do something. We have a fun, 300-style idea for it. … I can’t answer [why nothing's happening].”
TheTorchOnline.com is currently working on a feature story, trying to determine exactly why nothing is happening in the Xena movie.
![[Bloglines]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[Digg]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Fark]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/fark.png)
![[Google]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[Squidoo]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/squidoo.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://thetorchonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Thanks for the updates! Really sad news about the Buffy movie…
Wonder Woman deserves a good movie, but Joss’s departure really doesn’t bode well for WB’s comittment. LOL at you Xena comment - as much as I love Lucy Lawless, that would just be too weird.
I think the time for a Buffy movie has come and fine. All the actors have moved on, except maybe Alexander Harris. Thank God we still have the comic series!
I STILL want the Buffy movie. Wonder Woman, eh. Seems so 1970’s unless they can come up with a really clever update ala Battlestar Galactica!
Looking forward to seeing a Wonder Woman movie, IF it ever gets made. IESB have had a couple of reports about progress being made, but they didn’t really amount to much more than “looking for a script” (it seems the re-worked WW2 movie wasn’t up to scratch, which is a relief because having read the WW2 spec script, it wasn’t that good) and “looking for a director”.
And as much as I would LOVE to see a “Xena” movie with Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor, I don’t see it happening in the next few years (and sadly I don’t see anyone providing the funding for a Xena movie if both lead actors are well into their 40’s (as unfair as that sounds given “blockbusters” are headed by male actors in their 60’s)). The history behind the development of a Xena movie is long and convoluted, but it still comes down to a “rights” issue. Universal own the rights to a Xena movie and they couldn’t agree with Tapert & Co as to a suitable budget. Tapert apparently sought funding from elsewhere and was *close* to signing, but it never happened.
I do have some hope that if Greek mythology based films like “Clash of the Titans”, “War of the Gods” and “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” are a success and female-lead action films prove to finally be a sucess (”Fathom” with Megan Fox, “Amazon” with Scarlett Johansson, “Red Sonja” with Rose McGowan, “Bitch Slap” with Emily Browning and friends, “Magdalena”, a re-booted “Tomb Raider”, etc), then that may convince Universal to invest the kind of money that Tapert wanted in a Xena film and it could happen.