Warning: contains spoilers for Defenders and Daredevil season 2, and fruity language from the start.

“FUCK!”

It’s the one expletive we haven’t heard on any of Marvel’s Netflix shows. As far as I can recall, it has never been uttered by a character, and was even muted from some of the rowdier needle drops that peppered the Luke Cage soundtrack.

“FUCK!!!”

But here is Charlie Cox, repeating it at considerable volume at Deborah Ann Woll. And in a church, no less! Of course, it’s not really Charlie Cox angry enough to drop repeated f-bombs on his co-star, but an even more beaten and bloodied Matt Murdock than we’re usually accustomed to. And Matt and Karen Page aren’t really in a church (or, more accurately, a church basement), but an incredible facsimile, built on a soundstage in a remote part of New York.

It’s not clear if any of the magic words will make it into the final version of this later episode of Daredevil season three. The brief exchange is run many times, sometimes with a fuck, sometimes without. And while Daredevil would never be mistaken for the least intense superhero around, even by his standards, it’s clear that things haven’t been easy for him or Karen recently.

Some of that probably comes from the whole being (almost) dead thing. That’s bound to put anyone in a lousy mood. After all, as far as Hell’s Kitchen is concerned, Daredevil died at the end of The Defenders. But viewers know that Matt Murdock lives on, sheltered in the same church he often turns to for spiritual and emotional support. The question was never if we would get another season of Daredevil, but rather, when.

The wait for answers is almost over. With a new showrunner (The Man In The High Castle’s Erik Oleson), new characters, including Joanne Whaley as the mysterious Sister Maggie, and the return of Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk, Daredevil season three should take back Hell’s Kitchen in style. And with a new season comes a return to the show’s more grounded season one roots.

“I wanted to tell a thriller that is tonally between season one of this show and The Sopranos,” Erik Oleson says. “It is much darker and character driven, the action sequences are violent and explosive. It’s very much Daredevil and yet there are real stakes in all of these action sequences. There are emotional decisions being made, there are characters who die, there are fights that Matt loses.”

Oleson has drawn inspiration from Daredevil comics stories like Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada’s Guardian Devil and the classic Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, but don’t expect this season to adapt either of those tales. “It is not a predictable season,” Oleson says. “There are moments that resonated with me tonally that I used for inspiration in an original story. I am not using a direct translation from any of the comics, I think that that would have been a mistake. I wanted to give the audience what they wanted but not in the way that they expected.”

But the themes of the new season have a decidedly more real world basis.

“We have a design to the season that is framed around a central theme for me which is that our fears enslave us,” Oleson says. “Daredevil, being ‘the man without fear,’ was an interesting jumping off point. As I am observing the world around us right now, the country is very divided [and] the world has a lot of problems. I think that it’s everyone’s fears that manifest in ways that put us against one another. Villains who are able to capitalise on our fears are able to bring us down.”

Who might those villains be? Well, other than the aforementioned Wilson Fisk, Marvel is keeping quiet, but Oleson has some hints that will certainly intrigue fans.

“There’s another character on the show who is a very physical threat to Matt… who can match him blow to blow,” Oleson says. “We will hopefully see that character as a person with his own wants, needs, and desires. That way that they clash, it will illuminate aspects of Matt’s character and this other villain. I’m really interested in using action and all of these other elements to more deeply draw the characters.”

In other words, it all sounds pretty intense, and that scene in the church between Matt and Karen was likely only one culmination of that intensity. But you almost wouldn’t know it to talk to Charlie Cox, who is incredibly amiable and friendly with reporters, even well after midnight and the filming of repeated takes of an emotional scene. No longer wearing the tattered and improvised version of the black Daredevil costume, Cox emerges in comfortable grey sweats and a loose shirt that nevertheless doesn’t hide his impressive physique. His hands still bear the marks of the wraps that serve as gloves on the new suit, and were it not for his easy going demeanour, he could pass for a middleweight boxer, which is, of course, remarkably appropriate for Matt Murdock and his roots.

“The anger that you you think is directed at Karen at that moment isn’t,” Cox says when asked about the previous scene. “He has absolutely no right or reason to be angry with her at all, it’s all at himself. That moment is ‘I’m failing everyone and myself, I’m making terrible decisions over and over again, and it’s your fault because I don’t have anyone else to blame.’”

Getting into Daredevil’s head was a different kind of challenge this season. “I think that someone who begins to spend a lot of time alone and isolate themselves to the degree that Matt does this season, the beginning of madness creeps in, and that to me has been clearly written,” Cox says. “He begins to lose himself, and as an actor, it’s hard to play. It’s like drunk acting, it’s very easy to do an impression of it rather than to live it. I know that I go home and think ‘was that terrible, did that work’ and the scenes that I struggled the most with this year were the ones where there’s something off about him, where there’s something not right.”

And since Matt Murdock is one of the few superheroes whose faith is a defining feature, this leads to questions of faith. “Matt’s relationship with God and his faith have changed dramatically. I think he still believes in God, but he now believes in a punishing God, he sees God as quite cynical and almost vindictive,” Cox says. “Hopefully he’ll come back from that… and the other attitude that’s changed a bit is that Matt goes from believing that he’s Matt Murdock with this alter-ego of Daredevil to believing that he is Daredevil with a lie of Matt Murdock. There’s a very subtle shift, but mentally it does some interesting things. It makes him a little more reckless, which is quite fun, he’s less concerned with getting caught.”

The trauma Matt carries, not just from the end of The Defenders, but the previous two seasons of Daredevil, all inform the overall theme of this season, which is all about what each character fears. “In terms of the emotional arc, I think that the man without fear, Daredevil, is actually afraid of something…and that kind of psychologically informs his arc this season,” Oleson says. “It ties back to the fact that our fears enslave us. It makes us turn against other people sometimes, when we don’t realize that they are motivated by their own fear. That allows me to design a season where everyone who watches it hopefully feels like the world is not such a terrible place.”

Daredevil Season 3 arrives on Netflix on Oct. 19. We’ll have more from the cast and crew of the show in coming weeks.

Believe it or not, it took over a month after Wonder Woman came out for the sequel to be confirmed. As if Warner Bros. and DC weren’t going to want a follow up to their most successful (and arguably best) superhero film to date…

Since then, we know that Gal Gadot is back in front of the camera, Patty Jenkins is back behind it, and the film is going to jump the story forward to the mid 80s. 

The DCEU seems to be going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, with Superman (maybe) leaving, Batman (maybe) not coming back and about 17 planned Joker/Harley Quinn movies that almost certainly won’t all get made if the first one flops. But whatever else is going on in the background, at least we’ve still got Diana Prince.

We’ll keep this page up to date with more news as we get it, but here’s everything you need to know about Wonder Woman 1984…

Wonder Woman 1984 cast

Gal Gadot will obviously return in the title role, but the bigger surprise is that Chris Pine is (somehow) back as Steve Trevor. “Why is he back?” asks Jenkins at the ComicCon panel, “that’s something I’m super excited for everyone to find out. But it’s a very important part of our movie”. In other words, she’s not telling. 

Narcos (and former Game Of Thrones) star Pedro Pascal has joined the cast in what is being described (via Variety) as a “key role.” No other details are currently available. It’s not clear if he’ll be playing a hero or a villain. But one thing we do know…

…he sure looks like he might be playing a jerk in the movie.

The rest of the cast also includes Natasha Rothwell (Insecure), Ravi Patel, and Gabriella Wilde according to Deadline. Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright are also back as Diana’s aunt and mum, which either suggests that we’re going to get a flashback, or that Wonder Woman is actually going to head back to Themyscira. 

We also know that Kristen Wiig is playing the baddie…

Wonder Woman 1984 villain

The very first image of Wiig’s Wonder Woman 1984 villain, Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah, has officially arrived, courtesy of Patty Jenkins.

What we’re seeing here seems to align with the comic version of Cheetah (the third out of four,) who starts out as Barbara Ann Minerva, an archaeologist whose fascination with an African tribe’s female cheetah guardian leads her to a Faustian bargain with ancient plant god Urzkartaga. The supernatural act yields her immortality and the physical abilities – and physical attributes – of a cheetah.

The image of Wiig’s unassuming Barbara (who’s appropriately gazing at an exhibit of African wildlife,) seems to resemble the pre-Catwoman state of Michelle’s Pfeiffer’s mousy office assistant version of Selina Kyle in 1992’s Batman Returns – described in the comics as “severely neurotic”.  

Wonder Woman 1984 crew

Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job with the first movie, so it makes a lot of sense to bring her back to direct the sequel. 

The film is being written by David Callaham (The Expendables, Godzilla) and long-time DC writer Geoff Johns, who actually co-wrote the first film with Jenkins, uncredited. 

We also know who is composing the score: as Hans Zimmer is returning to the fold as the Wonder Woman 1984 composer after previously seeming to swear off superhero movies. Indeed, Film Music Reporter broke the news that Zimmer would be stepping into the saga’s musical department, taking over the reins from Rupert Gregson-Williams. This marks Zimmer’s second scheduled return to the genre in 2019, as he also was lured back to compose the score for Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Of course this is a lovely homecoming for the Wonder Woman saga since Zimmer composed the “Wonder Woman Theme,” which along with Gal Gadot’s Diana was considered the highlight of Batman v Superman. While Gregson-Williams did solid work, we cannot deny that this is good news, and hopefully a sign that the DC film universe continues its upswing after the 2017 film.

Wonder Woman 1984 release date

Wonder Woman 2 will be released on Nov. 1, 2019. The film went into production in June, filming in Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, Northern Virginia in the United States, London, Tenerife, Fuerteventura and Almería with the shoot scheduled to be completed in December.

Wonder Woman 1984 trailer

There’s no trailer yet, but we do have the low-down on the footage that was screened at SDCC. 

“Wonder Woman is in a mall, a little girl sees her and says ‘Oh my God.’ Then Wonder Woman picks her up and throws her out of the way into the arms of a big stuffed animal. She then turns and fights two guys with guns, disarms them, then lassos them and jumps from one level of the mall to the other. Quick cut to the WW84 logo, then a shot of WW running at top speed down a city street through stalled cars and people.”

Wonder Woman 1984 plot

Here’s the official synopsis…as sparse as it may be.

Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her facing an all-new foe: The Cheetah. 

Like something ripped from today’s headlines, Diana might be taking on the Soviet Union in Wonder Woman 2. ScreenRant were the first to report (and this was confirmed by The Wrap) that plans are taking shape for Wonder Woman 2 to take place in the 1980s, with a focus on Diana’s efforts at the end of the Cold War. 

In an interview with EW, Jenkins said that Wonder Woman 1984 “will take place in the US, which I think is right. She’s Wonder Woman. She’s got to come to America. It’s time.” Since it’s unlikely that the movie will play up the Russians as straight villains (much like how they handled the Germans in the first film’s World War I setting), this could turn out be a matter of Diana averting an unintended nuclear armageddon. In any case, don’t expect this to be a situation like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace where the hero tries to rid the world of all nuclear weapons or anything like that.

Although it also sounds like Patty Jenkins is at least a little excited to tell a more modern Diana story. “The most exciting thing,” she told ET Online, “is literally seeing her loose in the world now, living those classic stories,” added Jenkins. “Here’s Wonder Woman, and what can she do? It should be a totally different movie, but a grand and now full-blown Wonder Woman in the world.”

“I want to make a whole new movie that’s as pure and unique in its right as the first one was” adds Jenkins to the ComicCon crowd, hinting that the film will follow more of a loose comic-book continuity (which might explain how Steve comes back to life after 67 years…). “The bar is high,” says Gadot, “but our aspirations are even higher.”

“There’s lots of things set in the ’80s now, but this has a very different look and feel,” says Jenkins. “But the ’80s were also grand and wonderful with a lot of elegant and beautiful things too… and there was great music.”

That means we’re getting a cool soundtrack. 

Believe it or not, it took over a month after Wonder Woman came out for the sequel to be confirmed. As if Warner Bros. and DC weren’t going to want a follow up to their most successful (and arguably best) superhero film to date…

Since then, we know that Gal Gadot is back in front of the camera, Patty Jenkins is back behind it, and the film is going to jump the story forward to the mid 80s. 

The DCEU seems to be going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, with Superman (maybe) leaving, Batman (maybe) not coming back and about 17 planned Joker/Harley Quinn movies that almost certainly won’t all get made if the first one flops. But whatever else is going on in the background, at least we’ve still got Diana Prince.

We’ll keep this page up to date with more news as we get it, but here’s everything you need to know about Wonder Woman 1984…

Wonder Woman 1984 trailer

There’s no trailer yet, but we do have the low-down on the footage that was screened at SDCC. 

“Wonder Woman is in a mall, a little girl sees her and says ‘Oh my God.’ Then Wonder Woman picks her up and throws her out of the way into the arms of a big stuffed animal. She then turns and fights two guys with guns, disarms them, then lassos them and jumps from one level of the mall to the other. Quick cut to the WW84 logo, then a shot of WW running at top speed down a city street through stalled cars and people.”

Wonder Woman 1984 plot

Here’s the official synopsis…as sparse as it may be.

Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her facing an all-new foe: The Cheetah. 

Like something ripped from today’s headlines, Diana might be taking on the Soviet Union in Wonder Woman 2. ScreenRant were the first to report (and this was confirmed by The Wrap) that plans are taking shape for Wonder Woman 2 to take place in the 1980s, with a focus on Diana’s efforts at the end of the Cold War. 

In an interview with EW, Jenkins said that Wonder Woman 1984 “will take place in the US, which I think is right. She’s Wonder Woman. She’s got to come to America. It’s time.” Since it’s unlikely that the movie will play up the Russians as straight villains (much like how they handled the Germans in the first film’s World War I setting), this could turn out be a matter of Diana averting an unintended nuclear armageddon. In any case, don’t expect this to be a situation like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace where the hero tries to rid the world of all nuclear weapons or anything like that.

Although it also sounds like Patty Jenkins is at least a little excited to tell a more modern Diana story. “The most exciting thing,” she told ET Online, “is literally seeing her loose in the world now, living those classic stories,” added Jenkins. “Here’s Wonder Woman, and what can she do? It should be a totally different movie, but a grand and now full-blown Wonder Woman in the world.”

“I want to make a whole new movie that’s as pure and unique in its right as the first one was” adds Jenkins to the ComicCon crowd, hinting that the film will follow more of a loose comic-book continuity (which might explain how Steve comes back to life after 67 years…). “The bar is high,” says Gadot, “but our aspirations are even higher.”

“There’s lots of things set in the ’80s now, but this has a very different look and feel,” says Jenkins. “But the ’80s were also grand and wonderful with a lot of elegant and beautiful things too… and there was great music.”

That means we’re getting a cool soundtrack. 

Wonder Woman 1984 cast

Gal Gadot will obviously return in the title role, but the bigger surprise is that Chris Pine is (somehow) back as Steve Trevor. “Why is he back?” asks Jenkins at the ComicCon panel, “that’s something I’m super excited for everyone to find out. But it’s a very important part of our movie”. In other words, she’s not telling. 

Narcos (and former Game Of Thrones) star Pedro Pascal has joined the cast in what is being described (via Variety) as a “key role.” No other details are currently available. It’s not clear if he’ll be playing a hero or a villain. But one thing we do know…

…he sure looks like he might be playing a jerk in the movie.

The rest of the cast also includes Natasha Rothwell (Insecure), Ravi Patel, and Gabriella Wilde according to Deadline. Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright are also back as Diana’s aunt and mum, which either suggests that we’re going to get a flashback, or that Wonder Woman is actually going to head back to Themyscira. 

We also know that Kristen Wiig is playing the baddie…

Wonder Woman 1984 villain

The very first image of Wiig’s Wonder Woman 1984 villain, Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah, has officially arrived, courtesy of Patty Jenkins.

What we’re seeing here seems to align with the comic version of Cheetah (the third out of four,) who starts out as Barbara Ann Minerva, an archaeologist whose fascination with an African tribe’s female cheetah guardian leads her to a Faustian bargain with ancient plant god Urzkartaga. The supernatural act yields her immortality and the physical abilities – and physical attributes – of a cheetah.

The image of Wiig’s unassuming Barbara (who’s appropriately gazing at an exhibit of African wildlife,) seems to resemble the pre-Catwoman state of Michelle’s Pfeiffer’s mousy office assistant version of Selina Kyle in 1992’s Batman Returns – described in the comics as “severely neurotic”.  

Wonder Woman 1984 crew

Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job with the first movie, so it makes a lot of sense to bring her back to direct the sequel. 

The film is being written by David Callaham (The Expendables, Godzilla) and long-time DC writer Geoff Johns, who actually co-wrote the first film with Jenkins, uncredited. 

We also know who is composing the score: as Hans Zimmer is returning to the fold as the Wonder Woman 1984 composer after previously seeming to swear off superhero movies. Indeed, Film Music Reporter broke the news that Zimmer would be stepping into the saga’s musical department, taking over the reins from Rupert Gregson-Williams. This marks Zimmer’s second scheduled return to the genre in 2019, as he also was lured back to compose the score for Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Of course this is a lovely homecoming for the Wonder Woman saga since Zimmer composed the “Wonder Woman Theme,” which along with Gal Gadot’s Diana was considered the highlight of Batman v Superman. While Gregson-Williams did solid work, we cannot deny that this is good news, and hopefully a sign that the DC film universe continues its upswing after the 2017 film.

Wonder Woman 1984 filming

Filming is currently underway in Almería, Spain, with the production scheduled to wrap in December. Filming has also taken place in Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, Northern Virginia in the United States, London, Tenerife and Fuerteventura.

So far, very little seems to have trickled out from the set – apart from this video of the crew cheering Gal (presumably because she’s wearing Crocs with her Wonder Woman outift?).

Wonder Woman 1984 release date

Wonder Woman 1984 was originally due to be released on November 1st, 2019, but the date was recently bumped back a hefty seven months, to June 5th, 2020. Gadot revealed the news herself, via a repost on the official Wonder Woman 1984 Instagram account: 

Gadot’s confusing caption that the film has “gone back to its rightful home” is a reference to the first film’s release on the first weekend of June (back in 2017). As to the “changing landscape” that caused it, that seems to be down to a number of release reshuffles at Disney and DC that have been trying to avoid clashes and gaps over the next few years. So far, the filming is still expected to wrap in December, so it doesn’t sound like the delay is down to anything other than strategic box-office planning.

Either way, we’ve now got longer to wait…