Chris Pine Shocked That DCU Is Moving Away from Wonder Woman: “They Said No to a Billion-Dollar Franchise”

With Gunn’s and Safran’s reboot of the DCU, came the news that pretty much all projects that were under the DCEU umbrella would be canceled and that almost none of the cast would return to reprise their roles.

Of course, that also meant canceling the ‘Wonder Woman’ franchise or at the least, a planned third movie that Jenkins was supposed to direct and Gadot return to star as Wonder Woman.

Patty Jenkins even walked away from directing ‘Rogue Squadron’ to direct the potential third installment. Even after Gunn and Safran rebooted the DCEU into DCU some semblance of hope remained both for Jenkins and Gadot that they will return to the Wonder Woman project, until it was ultimately confirmed that this isn’t happening.

Now Chris Pine, who portrayed Wonder Woman’s love interest and one of the most notable secondary characters in Diana’s canon, Steve Trevor, opened up about how he was shocked that DCU won’t be continuing Diana’s story:

I’m stunned that they said no to a billion-dollar franchise and decided to pivot elsewhere. I don’t know what the reasoning was behind that; it’s above my pay grade, but Wonder Woman is an incredible character; Patty is such a thoughtful director.

But, is it a billion-dollar franchise? ‘Wonder Woman’ earned a total of $821.8 million worldwide, with $412.6 million from the United States and Canada and $409.3 million from other territories. This is pretty much where the success ends. ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ was initially set for a June 5, 2020 release by WB in the U.S. but got pushed to December 25, 2020, due to COVID-19. Originally planned for November 1, 2019, the sequel faced mixed reviews and didn’t do well at the box office. This is kind of where the beginning of the end began.

Even if the third movie was developed, it would likely result in drastic losses for the studio, following the most recent examples of movies with similar premise.

Gunn and Safran are planning to continue with Wonder Woman’s lore, just without her. A live-action TV show is being developed called ‘Paradise Lost’ set in Themyscira, but way before Wonder Woman’s time. The show is being described as “Game of Thrones-like.”

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