The upcoming “Wonder Woman 1984” – a sequel to the 2017 smash hit – will be having a villain whose conception was apparently influenced by Orange Man Bad, though that was not meant as a political statement, the director claimed.
According to Patty Jenkins, the film’s director, the villain Maxwell Lord, played by Pedro Pascal (“The Mandalorian”), was partially inspired by President Donald Trump.
“He’s one of them,” Jenkins told Screen Rant of the character’s many influences.
The director, however, clarified that she is not in any way trying to wade into politics.
“I mean honestly, the funny thing is he is, but I’m not trying to make … We even have the president in this movie, and I’ve gone out of my way not to make it look like Ronald Reagan,” Jenkins said. “I don’t want to get political; it’s not about being political.”
“I don’t have an agenda to have a political message to send to the world,” she continued. “Everybody needs to look at themselves right now, and our politics, our belief system of excess.”
When creating Maxwell Lord, she looked at various business successes from the 1980s, and given that Trump was undoubtedly one of the biggest names in business at the time, his influence on the character could not be ignored.
“Trump’s definitely one of the people we looked at, but it’s any of those kind of mavericks of business success that was big in the ’80s. Who went on to be major players in our world in potentially questionable other ways,” she said.
“Wonder Woman 1984” had its June 2020 release date pushed back to October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be a third “Wonder Woman” movie, but Jenkins said that will be her last film in the franchise. “The next one is probably my last Wonder Woman movie, so I have to put everything I want to show there. We have to think carefully,” she said.
Though 2017’s “Wonder Woman” featured an action heroine, feminist reactions to the film were mixed, primarily due to the fact that the movie still featured a male romantic love interest and a traditionally attractive female in the lead role.
“To me, whatever chance Wonder Woman had of being some kind of feminist antidote to the overabundance of superhero movies made by and for bros was blown by its prevailing occupation with the titular heroine’s sex appeal,” wrote Christina Cauterucci of Slate. “Characters frequently note that Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who goes by Diana in the film, is ‘the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.’ Her male companions in the fight against Germany’s WWI forces drool behind her back at the notion that there may somewhere be an island full of women who look like her, with no men in sight.”
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