Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins Had No Idea The Movie Would Have The Impact It Did

Wonder Woman has long been a popular DC Comics character, so it wasn’t a huge shock when DC and Warner Bros. decided to team-up for a Wonder Woman movie. The studio signed on director Patty Jenkins in 2016 and the flick was off to the races afterward, but now Jenkins has revealed she really didn’t know or understand the impact Wonder Woman would have on audiences.

In an interview, Patty Jenkins talked about how she didn’t realize Wonder Woman would be a “lighting rod” once it actually was shown to audiences in theaters, also stating it took until some heavy hitters started talking about it before the point was really driven home:

Later in the interview with Variety, Patty Jenkins also touched base about becoming “well-known” due to Wonder Woman and how that was also a surprise for the director. You gotta think that most people who sign on for superhero movies these days have to know there will be some sort of impact on popular culture, but there’s definitely a difference between some of the lower impact superhero films and the films like Wonder Women that have become notable mainstays in the genre.

Of course, people have liked Wonder Woman as a character for a long time, but without a reasonably good movie to back her, I’m sure Wonder Woman would not have had the exact impact it did on popular culture. Sure, people would still have noted it as being the first standalone female superhero movie in more than 10 years and the first to be helmed by a lady director, but that isn’t a guarantee the movie would have made a splash.

Next up, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot are teaming up for Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to the 2017 movie that got this whole conversation started. That will officially hit theaters on Jun 5, 2020. To find out what all we know about the upcoming movie — including the fact Wonder Woman will be getting a brand new costume this time around — take a look at our full guide.