On the set of “Wonder Woman 1984,” during its final days of production in London, director Patty Jenkins is completing a series of elaborate shots in quick succession. “These days, there are difficult things to shoot,” she says. “This is not that difficult; it’s just the directions and the multitasking. And it is so interesting how normal it is once you have a complicated plan.”
Jenkins’ planning is aided by the fact that, unlike her work in television or even on the first “Wonder Woman,” she has entered with a creative team and a known vision. Asked about having to fight to define projects on her own terms, she says, “I think that every time you do something, it’s for the first time. “Wonder Woman 1984” is different “because we all know each other, and that world is understood a lot more.”
The familiarity surely was a help on a complex production that made stops in Spain and Washington, D.C., where Pine says he spent his downtime exploring history. “I cried in front of the Supreme Court,” he says. “I was like, man, for all that we f— up, we’re still at it. We’re still trying. So I was super energized and pro-America.”
Will the patriotic tone bleed into the movie? Aside from the setting (1984, naturally) and the casting (Gal Gadot returns as the titular heroine, with Kristen Wiig taking the mantle of the villainous Cheetah), little is known. But Pine drops some hints about the role his character — who died in “Wonder Woman” — plays. “This one is a little different for me tonally,” he says. “The tables are turned, and I’m more of the deer in the headlights.” A reversal of the typical leading-man script? Sounds like a Jenkins-Pine production.
Read Variety’s cover story with Pine and Jenkins here.