Joss Whedon

Producer Joel Silver Talks Wonder Woman Casting and Reinventing

While Joel Silver was out promoting Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I got a chance to grill him about Wonder Woman. We heard from Joss Whedon last month, now find out what the producer has to say:

How is Wonder Woman going? Joss Whedon is writing. He’s loving what he’s doing. He’s been kind of back and forth on Serenity and touring and he was just getting back from Australia last week, but he’s focused and he’s happy. He’s got a great take on it and I believe we can make a great movie out of it.

How will Wonder Woman be different from the recent spate of Superhero movies? Joss is good. It’s all about the writing. If Joss can figure out a way to make this girl fresh, she is part of the original core of D.C. superheroes. It was Batman, Superman and her. That was it. They make fun of Aquaman on Entourage, but it was the three of them. What I like about it is she’s never been reinvented. Batman was reinvented. The TV, they made the movie and Superman, this and that. Wonder Woman exists only as a comic book and as a little cheesy TV show from the ‘70s. That’s really all it was. It never went past that which I like. If Joss can figure out a way to do it, I can be great.

How hard will casting Wonder Woman be? She’s young. She’s young in the script. So maybe we’ll have never met her before. Maybe we will. We have to see the script and we’ll see what Joss feels. I’m behind him.

With Serenity not finding as big an audience as hoped, do you worry about Joss’s reach? Look, I don’t know. He was so passionate. It was always dubious to take a failed TV series and try to make a success out of that. He was just so passionate about it, he wanted to do it and Universal stood by him. I think it did as best as could be hoped. It was an interesting movie, it didn’t cost a lot, he just worked his ass off to make it great and I’m not deterred by it. I’ll help him make a great movie out of Wonder Woman.

So you’re not worried he’s too highbrow for the masses? No, no.