WB Pushed for Wonder Woman’s Massive Ares Fight Over Original Ending - Screen Rant

Patty Jenkins reveals Warner Bros. pushed for Wonder Woman to end with a massive battle against Ares instead of an original smaller conclusion. Though Gal Gadot's Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, entered the DCEU in 2016, her first solo adventure didn't come until a year later with Wonder Woman. Jenkins directed the movie, which sees Diana venture away from her home of Themyscira and enter the world of men to stop Ares (David Thewlis), the god of war, from destroying humanity. Jenkins has also returned to direct Wonder Woman 1984, the long-awaited sequel that will finally debut in the US and on HBO Max later this week.

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At the time of its release, Wonder Woman became the best reviewed movie in the entire DCEU; in fact, there are many today who still count it among the best in the franchise. The film was largely praised for its depiction of Diana, her compelling dynamic with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), and the chill-inducing No Man's Land sequence. However, if there was one part of Wonder Woman that critics and fans disliked, it was the final battle between Diana and Ares. Many criticized how the sequence devolves into a CGI overload.

Jenkins recently sat down with IGN to discuss Wonder Woman 1984 and how it differs from the first film, which led to a brief discussion of the Ares ending. Jenkins admitted the original plan wasn't always for Diana and Ares to have a full-on brawl; in fact, things were much smaller. However, Warner Bros. pushed for a bigger finish, and Jenkins acquiesced. Jenkins recalled:

"The original end of the first movie was also smaller, but the studio made me change it at the last minute. So that's always been a little bit of a bummer that that's the one thing people talk about, because I agreed. And I told the studio we didn't have time to do it, but it was what it was. I ended up loving it, but that was not the original ending of the movie."

In recent months, Warner Bros. has gained something of a reputation for interfering with their big budget projects, with stories coming to light about Suicide Squad and The Hobbit. Jenkins' experience on Wonder Woman isn't quite as drastic as other examples of studios exerting influence over the creative content of a project, but it does show that studios don't always have the best ideas. It's unclear as to what Jenkins' original Wonder Woman ending was, but seeing as the biggest criticism the Ares fight got was that it was too big, anything smaller might have been received better.

As reviews for Wonder Woman 1984 have largely praised the villains at the center of the new film, it sounds like Jenkins was able to learn from past mistakes. Though the sequel has two main bad guys as opposed to one, Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Barbara Minerva/Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) feel like strong antagonists. Luckily, fans will get to make up their own opinions about the Wonder Woman sequel when it finally arrives in just a few days.

More: Wonder Woman 1984 Is Already Fixing The Original Movie’s Villain Mistakes

Source: IGN

Key Release Dates

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)Release date: Dec 25, 2020
The Suicide Squad (2021)Release date: Aug 06, 2021
The Batman (2022)Release date: Mar 04, 2022
DC Super Pets (2022)Release date: May 20, 2022
The Flash (2022)Release date: Nov 04, 2022
Aquaman 2 (2022)Release date: Dec 16, 2022
Shazam 2 (2023)Release date: Jun 02, 2023

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Rachel Labonte (1395 Articles Published)

Rachel LaBonte is a news and features writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for movies and television. A recent graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She's been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson's website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson's student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.