Zack Snyder's Wonder Woman Movie Pitch Sounds Heartbreaking
Although Zack Snyder's divisive contributions might home the most cringeworthy DC Extended Universe moments, you can't knock the guy for his daring interpretations of some of the comic book franchise's most iconic characters. Besides his controversial take on Batman's no-kill rule (which was destroyed by DC writer Grant Morrison), the "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" director also had ambitious plans for Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman in a concept that he dubbed "Wonder Woman 1854."
As Snyder broke down in an interview with Empire, these plans would have seen Diana Prince fighting in the Crimean War in search of Ares, the god of war (eventually played by David Thewlis in Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman"). Unfortunately, besides cutting off the heads of enemy soldiers, she'd also end up breaking the hearts of many of the brave warriors who had joined her cause, with every lovestruck interest forced to face their mortality while accepting that Diana, quite simply, isn't.
"The idea of that was an early riff we were doing: once Wonder Woman left the island in search of Ares, what happened to her in her different incarnations?" Snyder explained. "My idea for it was that she would travel around the world looking for Ares and she would go to every place where there was conflict." This journey would have led her to meet and romance war hero after war hero, all of whom would have become old news whenever a new man of war entered Diana's never-ending life.
Wonder Woman 1854 almost made it into Dawn of Justice
Deconstructing Diana's time at war, Zack Snyder revealed, "On those battlefields she found these lovers, warriors, and they would age out because she is immortal. They would be her lover for ten years or they might die in battle, and it was probably sad for a lot of the guys because they would see her starting to be nice to the next young soldier and be like, 'Oh, I'm being replaced.' But all the guys that she had with her were those loyal warriors she found on the battlefields all over the world."
Those loyal warriors can be seen in an alternate version of the photo that appears in "Dawn of Justice" teasing Diana's solo movie. Instead of being accompanied by Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and the rest of the World War I–era soldiers in the Belgian village in "Wonder Woman," she stands with a mishmash of fighters in a desert while brandishing a trio of severed heads.
Wonder Woman 1854 – This amazing image shot by Stephen Berkman of an else-world, war weary Diana, who had chased Aries across the battlefields of the world and had yet to meet Steve, who would help her restore her faith in mankind and love itself. pic.twitter.com/eofkAMg9as
— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) January 5, 2021
As for whether or not "Wonder Woman 1854" will ever come to fruition, at the present moment, the only hint of Diana Prince returning is through "Paradise Lost," one of the TV series James Gunn and Peter Safran announced for their DC universe reboot, which is set on Themyscira but before her birth ... and presumably has a little less severed head collecting.