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Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Megan Fox, Christina Hendricks, Beyonce Knowles — at one point or another, they were all rumored to be filling Wonder Woman's boots. Indeed, Hollywood has been promising for decades to make a movie about the Amazonian princess in the red, yellow and blue bathing suit, with many of the town's top leading ladies vying for the title role. But, until now, Wonder Woman remained as invisible as her plane. Here's a look back at some of her most notable failed launches.
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Joss Whedon's Anti-Corporation Wonder Woman
Joss Whedon reportedly earned $2 million to $3 million for a 2005 Wonder Woman script for Joel Silver. Its plot, Whedon later revealed, was "about how giant conglomerates are eating the world and how we are all puppets underneath them — maybe that's what [Warner Bros.] didn't like about it." It never got to the casting stage, although Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Charisma Carpenter was considered a possibility. Whedon was adamant that the character get a change of wardrobe. "In my version, she had an outfit that was more classically Greek in the warrior sense — she wasn't going to be wearing an American flag."
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Wonder Woman's Daughter
Before Whedon, Silver had gone through a half-dozen other screenwriters with contemporary storylines, including one about Wonder Woman's daughter, Donna Troy, before hiring Laeta Kalogridis (co-writer of Oliver Stone's Alexander) in 2003. Her script went back to basics. "The island, the Amazons, chicks kicking butt," she described it. It churned through the studio for a few years, never getting much traction.
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Wonder Woman vs. Superman?
Wonder Woman had a major role in Warner Bros.' original 2007 Justice League project, written by husband-and-wife team Kieran and Michele Mulroney (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows), including a rock 'em, sock 'em midair fistfight with a hypnotized Superman. After he lands a shattering blow, sending Wonder Woman jackknifing into outer space, the Man of Steel delivers his parting words, "Die … bitch …!"
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Wonder Woman on NBC
David E. Kelley wrote a Wonder Woman pilot for NBC that was shot in 2011. It starred Adrianne Palicki as Diana Themyscira, who not only fought crime in contemporary Los Angeles but also was CEO of her own large corporation. Despite a cameo by Alan Dershowitz arguing against Wonder Woman's extrajudicial reach ("I don't remember anything in the United States Constitution that says a woman in a costume is exempt from the Bill of Rights …"), the pilot never made it on the air.
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