Michelle MacLaren, who was the original director for 2017's Wonder Woman, reveals that she is still game to helm a superhero movie someday. Before Diana Prince got her cinematic debut in the DCEU, it took quite some time to get the DC heroine to the big screen. For more than a decade, Warner Bros. tried various ways to bring her to the world of cinema, and even on The CW. It wasn't until the DCEU was being shaped that the Themysciran heroine got her chance to jump from panel to screen. After Lynda Carter brought her to life on TV, Gal Gadot became the first actress in film to bring Wonder Woman to life, and quickly got a successful franchise.
Before Patty Jenkins boarded the project, Michelle MacLaren was set to direct Diana's solo film after getting hired in November 2014. Wonder Woman would have been MacLaren's first film she had ever directed, coming from the world of television. However, by April 2015, MacLaren and Warner Bros. ended up parting ways, with Jenkins landing the gig not long after, and ended up remaining attached to the whole Wonder Woman franchise. While little has been revealed about why MacLaren stepped down, the only reason given was that she and the studio had creative differences over the Wonder Woman project.
While MacLaren has continued to helm episodes of massive TV shows like Better Call Saul, The Morning Show, and Westworld, would she consider doing a superhero film down the line? In a new interview with ComicBook, MacLaren was asked whether she would return to the comic book genre despite her Wonder Woman experience. Even though she didn't go into depth about her time on the DC project, MacLaren did specify that she loves to do "projects that allow" her to do what she would like to do as a filmmaker, stating the following:
"I am always open to it. I love to do projects that allow me to do what I would like to do and what I would like to bring to the table, let's just put it at that. If the right project comes along, I would be happy to embrace it and I hope I get the opportunity to."
Even though MacLaren didn't end up getting to helm the first Wonder Woman film, the franchise has remained one of the DCEU's strongest ones thus far. The 2017 film was not only a critical success but collected a total of $822.3 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Not only did it become one of Warner Bros.'s highest-grossing comic book films, but Wonder Woman is still one of the most commercially successfully female superhero movies of all time. While Wonder Woman 1984's financial results were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, it did do well for HBO Max to the point that a third installment is in the works.
While MacLaren is obviously more than open to revisiting the comic book realm, it remains to be seen if it would ever be with Warner Bros. Whatever those creative differences were during her time on Wonder Woman would not necessarily be a problem at this point if Warner Bros. were to approach her again. Since her departure in 2015, there has been massive re-organizing behind the scenes in the DC Films division and Warner Bros./WarnerMedia as a whole. Even if Wonder Woman didn't end up being MacLaren's first superhero film, perhaps a different DC project will come her way in the future. -Screen Rant