If you’re like me, you probably explain your love of the first “Wonder Woman” film by saying you really like the first two-thirds but hate the last act. That’s because the first two acts are a fun, emotional adventure through WWI-torn Europe as Diana Prince and Steve Trevor fight bad guys and acclimate to this changing world. Then the third act sees a mustachioed man transform into a CGI monster and punch Wonder Woman really hard. It’s…not great. And director Patty Jenkins understands that because her original idea was much more different.
While she’s spoken about the ending of the film several times before, noting that WB forced her to change it, on the recent WTF podcast, Jenkins discussed it in more detail with host Marc Maron, and spoke more about her original vision for the ending for her 2017 box office hit superhero film. Apparently, she filmed her original ending with a very human Ares (played by David Thewlis) fighting Diana Prince in a much smaller, but thematically stronger ending.
READ MORE: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Dreams Big, But Wishes It’s Something It’s Not: Compelling [Review]
“That was the only thing that the studio forced my hand on was that it was not supposed to be — it was supposed to be like, that he never turns into Ares,” said Jenkins. “The whole point of the movie is that you get there to the big monster, and he’s just standing there looking at you saying, ‘I didn’t do anything.’ And then the studio kept saying, ‘we’ll let you do that, and then we’ll see.’ And then I could feel it creeping up, and then at the last minute, they were like, ‘you know what? We want Ares to show up.’ And I was like, ‘Goddamn, we don’t have time to do that now.’ And ‘Nope, you gotta do it!'”
Then when the film was released, people went to the now-famous refrain about the film’s ending being the worst part of an otherwise solid superhero film. And reading those reviews, knowing that it was a studio mandate, doesn’t sit well with Jenkins.
“So, It pisses me off now because sometimes I’ll read the reviews, and the only thing we unanimously got some shit about was that end pyrotechnics,” she explained. “It’s like [fans always say], ‘DC always does this!’ and the truth is, it was them. The studio did make me do that and it wasn’t right, but that’s ok.”
She goes on to explain, she was ok with the changes in the end, but thought the VFX were too rushed, were done in too short of a time frame and the last act suffered because of it.
READ MORE: ‘Wonder Woman 3’ In Development With Patty Jenkins Returning To Write And Direct
“Sometimes people say, ‘I really loved the movie except for the VFX in the end, and I’m like, ‘I know!‘ I ended up being at peace with what we did,” she admitted.
(Un)fortunately for Jenkins, the discussion about the first film seems moot, considering the sequel, “Wonder Woman 1984,” has been released and there is a whole new batch of discussions (predominantly bad) on social media about that film, and now people are less concerned by the ending of “Wonder Woman.”