Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins takes you inside the year’s most anticipated sequel

Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins tells news.com.au why the much-anticipated sequel is “not like anything I’ve done before”.

It’s the second day of autumn in London, but summer is lingering. We’re in the heart of London’s financial district, just across from the brutalist Barbican, but today streets are shut for filming and it’s doubling as Washington D.C. circa 1984.

Wonder Woman 1984, to be precise.

Security around the much-anticipated sequel to the hit 2017 film is tight: Our phones are taped up by a producer, so we can’t take a photo even if we try. These security measures don’t discriminate – even director Patty Jenkins’ own mother has to submit to them when she visits the set.

Gal Gadot suits up once more for Wonder Woman 1984. Picture: Warner Bros Pictures

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Jenkins’ vision for the 1980s plays on the commercialism, greed and excess of the decade, without succumbing to kitsch or cliche. The director hand-picks all her extras, and there are dozens of them on set today, swarming around for crowd scenes in a subway station. They all look the period part – the attention to detail is remarkable. Men and women in shoulder pads, bouffants and Tom Selleck handlebar mo’s walk past, looking like they’ve just stumbled out of a time machine from 35 years ago.

Pine and Gadot on location in London, filming the scene I watched.

And amid this sea of extras, two bona fide movie stars: Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, and her American pilot companion Steve, played by Chris Pine, who returns for the sequel despite for all appearances being killed off at the end of the first film (ah, the magic of cinema).

On a brief break between takes, Jenkins says she was thrilled to reunite her two leads given their incredible chemistry in the first film.

“I love those guys so much. You do projects together and you’re like, ‘Oh, I hope we stay friends,’ but I love them. We’ve all become so close. They’re who I hang out with in my off time and my on time,” she says of Gadot and Pine.

Chris Pine’s character is the fish out of water this time around. Picture: Warner Bros Pictures

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And despite the long wait for fans – even longer after Wonder Woman 1984’s release date was pushed back several times due to the coronavirus pandemic – there’s been no rest for Jenkins between movies.

“It’s been almost continuous, because these movies take such a long time. Working on the first movie, I was already thinking about what I wanted the second movie to be. It’s not like anything I’ve ever done before – the job never really stops,” says Jenkins, who pre-Wonder Woman had directed 2003’s Oscar-winning Monster and several TV shows.

“The first movie had the weight of telling someone’s origin story and designing that person’s world, whereas this one is about taking this character that we love so much and using her to tell a story that we really believe in and think is beautiful.”

Just as she did with the World War I setting of the first film, Jenkins is revelling in the period setting of 1984. Once more, Wonder Woman (aka Diana Prince) is in a different world, unaware – and unconcerned – about the expectations levelled at women in the society she’s been dropped into.

“Just as the first time I wasn’t making a movie about that, I thought it was such a hilarious way to look at the issues of the time: She doesn’t know about them, nor does she care about them. It makes it so crystal clear: ‘What are you talking about, women can’t come in the room? Why not?’” Jenkins says.

Gal Gadot (left) and director Patty Jenkins. Of her leads, Patty says: ‘I love those guys so much.’ Picture: Jean-Baptiste Lacroix/AFP

Of course, you can have a bit more fun dressing your characters for Wall Street, 1984 than dressing them for World War I. Expect to see some high-glam ’80s fashion from Diana this time around.

Early scenes from the sequel suggest Diana’s very much in control in this outing, with Steve the “fish out of water” in her ’80s world. Just don’t call him a sidekick.

“That plot point just arrived organically. The gender stuff, it’s funny … I think it’s interesting when people look at these movies and say, ‘Well this is Wonder Woman so that makes Steve the sidekick.’ Well not to me, he’s not the sidekick. I don’t care about gender – mixing it all up, I always enjoy. She’s filled with love, but she’s kicking that dude’s ass – it’s all possible!” says Jenkins.

Ultimately, the director says what draws audiences to the character of Wonder Woman is that element “in her design that’s magical and wonderful and beautiful.”

“It’s about someone who believes in making the world a better place. That’s what I think is the power of the film. It’s about that universal want.”

WONDER WOMAN 1984 will be released in Australian cinemas October 1, 2020. Eager to get a sneak peek? A new trailer is expected to debut during the WONDER WOMAN 1984 panel at DC FANDOME this Sunday, August 23.

The journalist travelled to London as a guest of Roadshow Films.