Wonder Woman 3: A Missed Opportunity in Light of Joker 2's Failure
DC's Wobbly Future: Why Canceling Wonder Woman 3 Was a Huge Mistake
Things haven't been great for DC superhero movies lately! Before the big DC Universe relaunch, even films like Joker: Folie a Deux ended up bombing; creating a new layer of disappointment within this already failing franchise, creating further uncertainty amongst viewers; making many consider the validity and the financial viability of this particular project even before launch! This series of bad decisions impacted many things in a hugely negative fashion – the previous DCEU had its ups and downs but delivered seriously huge successes. Aquaman topped $1 billion, Wonder Woman made over $800 million (according to The Numbers) and these titles created high hopes; creating questions regarding why some similar projects fail whilst other highly successful ones completely fail to justify this new restructuring within this DC project.
This questionable decision to halt successful products—like a potential Wonder Woman 3—in favor of a completely new universe; made for further questions, leading some key figures to openly criticize the decision! Connie Nielsen (Queen Hippolyta) criticized scrapping these proven winners and replacing those incredibly successful actors and projects with yet more unknown and largely unproven entities within the wider entertainment space and is going to be particularly discussed further below. This whole rethinking created immense negative responses and makes that critical point worthy of some much needed review. Why risk killing off good stuff when you could've invested in things likely to succeed even more?
Joker 2's Epic Fail: Why Wonder Woman 3 Should Have Been the Safer Bet
Warner Bros. and DC Studios had a seriously difficult position when creating a plan going forward and the need for a reboot becomes readily apparent and highly questionable! Joker 2's massive disappointment is noteworthy; compared to the original Joker (a $1 billion hit!) its failure to even get close to earning a similar box office revenue amount raises additional questions surrounding some of the previous releases that completely ignore successful projects for lesser ones!
Even Aquaman 2 shows this serious downward trend in DC film quality; not earning nearly as much as its first movie. Those earlier numbers highlight how easily money could be gained by ignoring a new attempt for the sake of continuing these established productions that already had audiences attached. Meanwhile Wonder Woman was massive— its box office earnings show this: $817,691,766— making the whole decision incredibly perplexing!
Here’s what Connie Nielsen had to say, criticizing some of the decisions made at the production level; that decision is still actively discussed today, amongst industry professionals: “I mean, frankly, I don’t understand it. [Wonder Woman] made $800 million just in the movie theaters, and it has an enormous and passionate, passionate fan base. These are spectacular films, and there’s just no reason I can understand whatsoever for not investing in that. If I were a business person, I would say that’s money on the table. It’s right there. Plus every time we’ve done it, [it was] with budgets that were way smaller than any of the other DC budgets.” This really displays that ignoring this and moving forward on untested ideas isn't simply bad financial decision-making: it demonstrates an ignorance about the potential success for various other types of storylines from other franchises; those proven and readily popular choices!
Why Wonder Woman 3 Would Have Been a Smarter Investment
Joker's success is why there is now pressure to create its sequel and its disconnected storyline made that seemingly more easily viable. The problem is, the initial Joker was made with full awareness it is intended to be standalone by director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix! Adding a sequel wasn’t even needed; nor something explicitly desired from fans!
Compare this to the anticipated Wonder Woman 3. The success was there, there is immense passion behind it, this excitement, surrounding Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot's continued engagement in those related films remains actively important and a pivotal factor influencing how that fanbase really acts toward this storyline.
The decision to stop these stories with little explanation caused fans massive frustration and betrayed them completely! Many lost any interest in continued involvement and completely abandoned the storyline before things got underway. That hurt their potential audience. Meanwhile Joker 2, sitting on the fringes; outside the official continuity changes really should never have been made; making for an outright waste of enormous budgets!
Conclusion: A Cautionary Tale About Ignoring Success
The Joker 2 flop is massive; a lesson about focusing too much on hyped projects, particularly with a clear lack of appreciation around how previous products remain lucrative, easily accessible and provide enormous value! Ignoring a readily successful and ongoing film series with a known, strong and reliable fanbase makes a financially poor choice that's incredibly easy to critique. Those failures also created questions regarding why so many high-ranking DC individuals allowed for that possibility and made the current choices in favour of scrapping established films; something which raises many more complex questions in terms of DC Studio internal management capabilities!
