Patty Jenkins Talks About The Ares Mystery In ‘Wonder Woman’

This year is packed with comic book/superhero films and one of them is Warner Bros. Pictures’ Wonder Woman as Diana Prince is finally leading her own film, following Gal Gadot’s debut as the iconic Amazon Princess in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. For the Wonder Woman film, we are going back in time to learn about how Diana discovers Man’s World and becomes one of the world’s greatest heroes.

Last week, Heroic Hollywood was fortunate to be invited to an edit bay visit in London where director Patty Jenkins and her team are working hard on putting the final touches for the film as it gets ready to hit theaters this summer. Jenkins and her team showed us a few clips as we got to learn a bit more about this highly anticipated DC Comics film.

Before we go on to discuss what we learned from our visit, be aware of potential spoilers – you have officially been warned! Ready?

In one of the clips, we see Danny Huston’s character, General Erich Ludendorff, crack open a capsule with a gas created by Doctor Maru (Elena Anaya) that she believes will restore his strength. Jenkins was asked whether or not we are meant to take away from this that Huston’s character is actually the villainous Ares, the big antagonist of the film. The director was very coy about that part as she wouldn’t reveal whether or not he is, but she did find it interesting how super-mysterious Ares has become in terms of who is playing him, which was never their intention.

“This whole thing is very interesting to me because I don’t think we set out to be super-mysterious about who the villain is, but it’s kind of funny that it has turned into what it has turned into, so now I don’t want to comment about it. But there is definitely, you know, those are definitely good fun characters! [laughs]”

With these superhero and comic book films, it becomes very easy to find yourself seeing several rumors and reports about story details, what actor is playing what character, etc. During a chat with Jenkins, the director talked about how she and her team react to when they see various rumors take off like wildfire on the internet. To her, it’s important that people can enjoy the film and have a great time while watching it without having it ruined in advance.

“Yeah, yeah obviously I can’t say more about any of these things and how they unfold, but yeah. I have very mixed feelings about all of this because on the one hand, there have been non-real and real spoilers [that] people have been talking about various different things. Honestly the only thing I can say to you guys is that until you’re inside one of these movies, you can’t believe how absolutely not-real some of them are. I’m sure that you guys know because I’m sure you’ve been around it so many times, but when we watch some of these stories take off, you’re like “Oh my God, one person says they knew one person who speculated one thing!” and then it gets picked up and covered like wild fire. It’s been shocking to watch how those things progress. I just want everybody to give the movie a chance, to get to see it and have the greatest time seeing it. That’s why I think so many of you defend not having spoilers of like don’t ruin the experience for people. Be the journalists that you are and talk about things, but not making it a movie that you can’t watch.”

Directed by Patty Jenkins, Wonder Woman also stars Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Lucy Davis as Etta Candy, Connie Nielsen as Queen Hippolyta, Robin Wright as General Antiope, Lisa Loven Kongsli as Menalippe, Danny Huston as General Erich Ludendorff, David Thewlis as Sir Patrick Morgan, Elena Anaya as Doctor Maru, Ewen Bremner as Charlie, Saïd Taghmaoui as Sameer and Eugene Brave Rock as the Chief.

Wonder Woman opens in theaters on June 2, 2017.