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Patty Jenkins Is About to Get Paid for ‘Wonder Woman 2’

The director is about to finalize a deal that would bring her in-line with her blockbuster-directing male counterparts.
Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman
By  · Published on August 18th, 2017

The director is about to finalize a deal that would bring her in-line with her blockbuster-directing male counterparts.

There’s been a lot of speculation around the Wonder Woman sequel and whether director Patty Jenkins — who helmed a film that’s about to gross more than $800 million worldwide — would return. At Comic-Con in July, Warner Bros. announced that the sequel would be moving forward, with Gal Gadot returning to the titular role, for a December 13, 2019, release. But curiously there was no word on Jenkins.

Now according to a report by Deadline, the reasons behind the delay are starting to come to light. Apparently, Jenkins’ representatives have been working on a deal that would compensate her appropriately for the sequel. As Deadline explains, “Typically, according to sources, a frosh director on a comic book movie gets $1.5M to $3M, while a director in the realm of Zack Snyder (who is helming DC’s Justice League) received $10M against 10% cash break even for his second DC film Man of Steel. (That’s usually paid out as 20% during pre-production, 60% during production, 10% during post and 10% following).”

If and when a deal is finalized, it would be a huge win for fans of diversity in the industry, where female directors are still compensated less richly than their male counterparts. And while many fans might be unconcerned about how much money a director makes (to be honest, we just want to see a good movie), this matters within the context of Hollywood business. Plus, I think we can all agree that Warner Bros. should pay Patty Jenkins what she’s worth and definitely bring her back, as her imprint on Wonder Woman is a lot of what made the film successful in the first place. In fact, it was yours truly who suggested that they should let her make whatever she wants. Or a Superman movie. Or whatever she wants.

https://twitter.com/rejects/status/870903937926184961

The moral of the story is that Patty Jenkins is very close to having a deal in place to return for the Wonder Woman sequel. And whatever the cost, that’s a good thing.

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Neil Miller is the persistently-bearded Publisher of Film School Rejects, Nonfics, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the Executive Producer of the One Perfect Shot TV show (currently streaming on HBO Max) and the co-host of Trial By Content on The Ringer Podcast Network. He can be found on Twitter here: @rejects (He/Him)