According to Deadline, Wonder Woman 2 may have found a surprising choice for its main villain, with Kristen Wiig reportedly “in talks” to play longtime Wonder Woman nemesis Cheetah. Deadline expects those talks to work out very soon, and it says Cheetah will be a “main” character in the film and not just a back-up villain who can run around in the background while Gal Gadot throws punches at another flying man with a mustache and CG armor. The story also notes that this will be Wiig first’s time playing a supervillain, which seems fairly obvious since she has mostly appeared in comedies and indie dramas—two genres that are usually light on supervillains.
Original director Patty Jenkins is returning for Wonder Woman 2 (after securing a massive and well-deserved pay raise), and she is previously indicated that it will be a “great love story” set during the Cold War. As for Cheetah, the most recent version in the comics is an archaeologist named Barbara Ann Minerva who gets turned into a cheetah-person by a magic ritual. As a cheetah-person, she has a tail, claws, fur and/or weird spotty skin, and the proportionate strength and speed of a real cheetah. Like with every comic book movie, though, there’s a chance that everything about that could be ignored.
Updated, Friday, March 9, 8:54 a.m. CT: Patty Jenkins has just tweeted confirmation that Kristen Wiig is joining the DCEU.