Resurfaced Footage of NBC’s Scrapped ‘Wonder Woman’ Pilot Shows the Show Pedro Pascal Nearly Forgot

Before Gal Gadot made the Amazon princess a box office force, Diana Prince almost took over network television. NBC’s scrapped ‘Wonder Woman‘ pilot has become one of DC’s strangest what-if stories, a high-profile attempt that never made it past a single episode. It came from David E. Kelley, one of television’s most prolific writer-producers.

The project began in October 2010, when Warner Bros. Television hired Kelley to write a new series and pitch it to the networks. Every major network turned it down, but NBC, the last holdout, ordered a pilot on January 21, 2011. The concept reimagined Diana as a vigilante crime fighter in Los Angeles who was also a successful corporate executive trying to balance her many lives.

Now, clips from the unaired pilot are making the rounds online. The resurfaced footage shows Adrianne Palicki as Diana in her gold tiara, alongside a young Pedro Pascal. Fans are revisiting the scrapped series with fresh eyes, and the clip arrives at a time when Pascal is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

Pascal played Ed Indelicato, Wonder Woman’s liaison to the police department. He later landed a far bigger role in the franchise as Maxwell Lord in ‘Wonder Woman 1984,’ opposite Gadot. He has admitted that the connection to his earlier Wonder Woman job didn’t even occur to him at first.

Footage from NBC’s scrapped Wonder Woman 2011 TV series, starring Pedro Pascal and Adrianne Palicki Pascal later starred in the DCEU Wonder Woman sequel https://t.co/g9UGnTuFJv

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Palicki was announced in the title role on February 16, 2011. Elizabeth Hurley was cast as the villain, Veronica Cale, while Tracie Thoms played Diana’s assistant, Etta Candy. Cary Elwes and Justin Bruening, as Steve Trevor, rounded out a surprisingly strong ensemble.

Jeffrey Reiner directed the pilot, which was shot in early 2011. NBC was expected to slot it into its fall lineup, so the show had real momentum. That made the eventual decision even more surprising.

NBC passed on the series in May 2011, and the pilot never aired, although a workprint version minus many visual effects can still be found online. The problems started early, when the first publicly released photos of Palicki in costume traded the classic star-spangled shorts for snug blue pants with stars down the sides. Critics compared the look to a cheap Halloween costume, and producers later changed the wardrobe, but the damage was done.

A leaked script was widely criticized as well, and reports said test audiences gave the rough-cut pilot a lukewarm reception. In the end, the combination of bad buzz and mixed screenings proved too much. Many fans and critics at the time were relieved the show didn’t move forward.

For Palicki, the rejection hurt. She has called playing Wonder Woman a childhood dream, and she told TheWrap she was “devastated for a while after” the pilot failed. She has also said the show arrived one or 2 years too early to be a sure thing, before the superhero boom reshaped what audiences expected from the genre.

Her career has thrived anyway, with roles in ‘Friday Night Lights,’ ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and ‘The Orville.’ She has also been gracious about Gadot’s version of Diana, a mark of how the experience stayed with her without souring her.

The pilot remains a curiosity, remembered more for its costume controversy than for any creative payoff. Some retrospective pieces have argued it was ahead of its time, with its modern-day setting and focus on Diana’s double life. Whether that’s fair or not, the footage gives fans a rare look at a version of Wonder Woman that almost existed.

It also offers a fun twist on Pascal’s career. He went from a supporting role in a failed network pilot to starring in a DC blockbuster and beyond, and the resurfaced clips capture him at the very start of that journey.

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