It was announced this weekend that NBC has picked up the pilot for David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman script.
Deadline broke the story—and my heart—when they described Wonder Woman as “a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.”
The only words from that description that match my own are probably “woman” and “extraordinary.” And maybe “the.” As much as I say it is unfair to judge something before we’ve seen it, things like this are the exception. I call it the “Jack Black Rule of Comic Book Adaptations” (made famous by the shocking choice by Warner Bros. to briefly cast Black as Hal Jordan in a Green Lantern movie).
I think screenwriters sometimes use the word vigilante as a synonym for gritty. The short description sounds like it has nothing to do with the character Wonder Woman that I know. I am the last person to expect a literal translation from comics to film, but I do expect the essence of the character to be there.
I believe bringing Wonder Woman to film or television would be no easy task for even the most talented of writers, but these guys shouldn’t do so at the expense of the character. If you’re going to rejigger that with which we are familiar to a point that it becomes pretty unrecognizable, then create a wholly original character like the Cape or the cheerleader from Heroes.
I really hope I’m wrong and that Kelley has developed something special for the Amazonian Princess. For now I’ll keep my arms crossed, my brow furrowed, and my expectations right where they belong. High.
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