Estimated to make around $95 million in the US and $175 million globally in its opening weekend, Wonder Woman is most certainly a financial success, especially if we consider the its relatively small $140 million budget. Furthermore, critics adore it, and it’s one of the best-reviewed comic book movies of all time (with the same Rotten Tomatoes rating as Iron Man and The Dark Knight).
We should have seen this coming even prior to the movie’s debut, when the first Twitter reactions came out and when we first heard that a sequel had been greenlighted.
With these excellent results, Warner Bros. had to announce a sequel. And they did.
Although director Patty Jenkins has said that she already knows what the sequel should be about, producer Charles Roven said that there’s no written outline yet:
Nothing has been written. We really want to focus on this movie, and I think the result of this movie is going to really define what the future of Wonder Woman is in the movies, other than the fact that you know that she's in Justice League (Cinema Blend).
We do know one thing: Director Patty Jenkins will return! After all, she beat the opening weekend numbers for Sam Taylor-Johnson's Fifty Shades of Grey, and set a new record for female directors.
Previous rumors said that the Wonder Woman movies will explore various historical periods, and Screen Rant has reported (via The Hollywood Reporter) that the sequel will take place in the present era. This makes sense, because her involvement in the War to End All Wars shaped her into the fighter we saw in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The director declined to provide any details about the sequel. She did reiterate that she planned to do everything she could to create the best version of the superheroine:
What I never want to do is start phoning it in and making things just to show that I can keep my foot in the door and do big movies. I don't care about that at all. I just want to make great movies. And that could come from any direction. It might be a $10 million movie or it might be a $200 million movie.
It remains to be seen when this sequel will happen, but rumor has it that it will be released after Batgirl (2019-2020). With the overwhelmingly positive response to the first Wonder Woman movie, we can expect the studio to fast-track the second installment.
