Patty Jenkins says Wonder Woman 1984 is "not a sequel," even though it definitely is

Look: We would never, in a million years, try to tell director Patty Jenkins—whose Wonder Woman marked the first real bright spot in an otherwise sloggy DC Comics Cinematic Universe—how to do pretty much anything, ever. She’s way smarter than us, Wonder Woman was great, and Wonder Woman 1984 is looking extremely exciting, at least from the brief, neon-heavy glimpses of it that we’ve seen

But.

As devoted practitioners of the fine art of pedantry, we do have to express a certain amount of confusion at statements Jenkins has apparently been making to the film’s producers, making it clear that, in the words of long-time producer Charles Roven, the upcoming film about the continuing adventures of Wonder Woman is “not a sequel” to the previous movie.“She was just determined that this movie should be the next iteration of Wonder Woman, but not a sequel,” Roven told Vulture recently, going on to note that, while Wonder Woman 1984 will, indeed, feature the same cast, the same sense of humor, and the same emotional tone as the first Wonder Woman movie, it’s still definitely not a sequel to Jenkins’ 2017 hit.

We suspect that the real problem here is the stigma that still exists around the word “sequel,” even in as continuity-heavy a genre as superhero films. (This is all your fault, Thor: The Dark World.) Vulture reports another source close to Jenkins that says that she’s viewing the film as “a stand-alone film in the same way that Indiana Jones or Bond films are, instead of one continuous story that requires many installments.” Which, okay, fair enough: We’re not sure how “Temple Of Doom is not a sequel to Raiders Of The Lost Ark” would hold up under the ol’ Lasso Of Truth, but it’s Jenkins’ movie; we’re going to be lined up to see it no matter what she ends up referring to it as.