After the huge success of 2017’s Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins’ follow up Wonder Woman 1984 had a rough premiere in December 2020. Reviews from audiences and critics alike were mostly mixed. Connie Nielsen—who plays Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons—recently offered her take on why the film did not have more success.
“I think that Patty has this extraordinary vision. And it must have been incredibly painful to not be able to have a normal release and to have your release shuffled over and over, feeling this enormous weight on your shoulders for a pretty big blockbuster film, that you’re supposed to be bringing the bacon back to the company, and you can’t because you can’t open the film.”
Most of the negative reviews commented on the storyline that Jenkins chose to portray in this film. Diana herself seemed like a bystander in her own story. She was less of the fierce, quick warrior audiences saw in the first film. The climax of the movie involved Wonder Woman appealing to the entire world to renounce their wishes, and Connie Nielsen explains that this pacifist approach is something new to superhero movies. This coupled with the delays in release seemed to put everyone in a negative mindset by the time the film premiered.
“I think that what happens psychologically is that a lot of movies like that then get into this insecure territory where they’re up for a judgment that would not normally have happened. The fact that it was moved so many times, put it under scrutiny that it did not deserve. It also, as a sophomore film, will always be compared to the one before… A lot of people were so willing to just critique certain elements instead of seeing it as a whole. And I think that as a whole, everything that happens in this film makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense, and I think it’s a beautiful film.”
The character of Queen Hippolyta will return in the third Wonder Woman film and will also appear in an Amazons spinoff project that Jenkins is currently developing. Wonder Woman 1984 is currently available digitally and will be available on 4K, UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 30th.
Source: Movieweb
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