While Patty Jenkins is rightfully earning praise for this weekend’s “Wonder Woman,” as many people know, this wasn’t her first stab at making a superhero movie. Quite a few years back, Marvel enlisted the filmmaker for “Thor: The Dark World,” but she eventually exited the project over creative differences, and was replaced by Alan Taylor (and maybe that was a bullet dodged, because he did not have a good time making the film). However, it’s never been clear how her version would’ve been different than the one that hit cinemas — until now.
In an interview with Indiewire, Jenkins relayed her experience working on ‘The Dark World,’ and according to the site, it would’ve been “a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque space opera,” that would’ve seen Thor and Jane splitting up.
“It was painful and sad because I really loved those guys and I loved the idea of us making a ‘Thor’ together, but it’s one of those things,” she said about leaving the movie. “You have to make sure that the movie you want to make is fully the right movie for that studio too. It was heartbreaking, but I also knew that it was [a] good [decision].”
“I knew that it was [a] good [decision] because I didn’t think I could make a great film out of their script,” Jenkins added.
The filmmaker was also aware how her gender would’ve played into work on “Thor: The Dark World” — she had to succeed, or else it could (unfairly) set her own career, and those of other female filmmakers, back.
“If I do it, and it’s what I think it’s gonna be, I can’t help the fact that it will represent women directors everywhere, and then that’s going to be bad for everybody,” she said. “As heartbreaking as it was, I was also like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t do something I don’t believe in, in that big of a scale.’ I knew that that was going to set [not only] me back, but also women directors back.”
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In the end, she has certainly kicked open some doors with “Wonder Woman,” which opens tomorrow, and is expected to do big things at the box office.