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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

After all the Costume Drama - No New Wonder Woman TV Series.


Despite reworking the costume (3 times) and a last minute attempt to inject more kick-ass action into David E. Kelley's girly-angst filled script treatment-- the Wonder Woman pilot failed to impress NBC, and as announced earlier this week they chose not to pick it up as a series. Top NBC exec Robert Greenblatt responded to questions why with...
"They made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job. You look at what you have, what you need, and it just didn’t seem to fit in with what we were doing. We did what was best for the schedule”
...that's a diplomatic way of saying it was a disaster, with so much wrong it wasn't worth reworking, likely to irritate fans -- and much worse -- unappealing to a mainstream audience. The big disappointment is that Warner Brothers/DC Entertainment was not willing to invest the time and money into a film re-launch or at least a cable quality series idea. Wonder Woman is the only one of DC's Big Three Heroes that hasn't received a new live action treatment since the 70's. How hard is it to use Diana's Greek Mythology origin to cash in on the success of every thing from The 300 to Clash of the Titans?

There's plenty of evidence from people who saw the script of what a crazy muddled mess the pilot/series concept was -- with an unnecessary weird triple identity, a ridiculous amount of supporting characters, and dated trite self reflective pop-song moments. (Click through any of the highlighted text to see more details). Ultimately, I think a lack of financial commitment is really that doomed this re-launch from the start -- as fittingly evidenced by the costume(s). Conceptually either could have worked -- if they didn't look so cheap (both meanings of the word) and ill-fitting. I'm pretty certain as an Amazonian Warrior Princess (and a Corporate CEO in this version) that Diana has the resources (magical or financial) to have a fighting ensemble designed for evil-vanquishing that doesn't look like it might fall off mid-battle.



The ultimate irony may be this ... WB/DC has freely admitted all along that there are difficulties with Green Lantern because his mythology is not well known to the general audience at large. And they are spending last minute millions to get potential movie goers up to speed. At the same time the attention to and concern over the this potential WW series spilled over from fan media into the mainstream revealing just what an identifiable and beloved icon Wonder Woman is. Hopefully all involved will keep this in mind and move quickly on more thought out re-boot of the Amazon Princess. Meanwhile we'll know shortly if the Green Lantern gamble pays off -- but I would have put my money on Wonder Woman.



Links are from EW.com, Screen Rant, Bleeding Cool, and iFanboy . All of which provided great coverage and updates on the shows development.

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