Every rebuilt universe has a hole it can’t leave open for long, and for James Gunn’s DC Universe that hole has a name: Wonder Woman. You cannot credibly relaunch DC without Diana of Themyscira, and Gunn knows it. Now he’s said the quiet part out loud — the “Wonder Woman” reboot is a priority, it’s being fast-tracked, and the first concrete piece has clicked into place. The catch, for anyone attached to the last decade, is that this Diana starts from scratch.
The headline move is the hire. Ana Nogueira, who wrote the DCU’s upcoming “Supergirl,” has been tapped to script the new Wonder Woman film — another job in a rapidly growing portfolio inside this universe. Handing the character to a writer already fluent in Gunn’s DC is a telling choice. It says continuity of voice matters here, that Diana isn’t being farmed out to a stranger but folded into a house style the studio is deliberately building across every project. Warning: beyond this point there are spoilers for the DCU’s Wonder Woman plans and the clean-slate direction James Gunn is taking Diana.
Every rebuilt universe has a hole it can’t leave open for long, and for James Gunn’s DC Universe that hole has a name: Wonder Woman.”
Let’s address the elephant on the island. Gal Gadot (Diana Prince), who carried the character through the last era, is not returning. That era is over — full stop — and the reboot is a genuine reset rather than a continuation. It’s a bittersweet call. Gadot’s first solo outing was, for a stretch, the brightest thing the previous DC regime produced, and her casting meant a great deal to a lot of people. But Gunn’s whole thesis is a clean continuity, and you can’t half-reboot a universe. If Superman gets a new face, so does Wonder Woman.
Which raises the question everyone’s already asking: who picks up the lasso? For now, nobody. Gunn has been clear that casting the new Diana won’t begin until the script is finished, and there’s no director attached yet either. That’s the disciplined, unglamorous order of operations he keeps preaching — story first, star second — and it’s the opposite of the old approach where a release date and a headline-grabbing casting announcement arrived before anyone knew what the movie actually was. It means the wait will be longer. It also means the foundation should be sturdier.
There’s more Diana in the pipeline than just the film, too. DC Studios has a Wonder Woman television series, “Paradise Lost,” in development — a prequel set on Themyscira long before Diana is even born, a “Game of Thrones”-flavored look at the politics and myth of the Amazons’ island. Taken together, the movie and the show sketch an ambition to build the whole corner of the mythology, not just parachute one hero into the middle of it. That’s the difference between a franchise and a character: a franchise has a world.
The challenge in front of Nogueira is steep, and worth being honest about. Following Gadot and that first solo film is a tall order — its best moments set a bar the sequels never cleared, and audiences have a real emotional attachment to what came before. A new Diana has to justify her existence fast, has to feel essential rather than like a corporate do-over. Get her wrong and the reboot looks like it’s discarding one of the few unambiguous wins the old regime ever had. Get her right and Wonder Woman becomes the beating heart this universe has been missing.
What gives me cautious optimism is the sequencing. By naming Wonder Woman a stated priority and locking in a writer who already understands the sandbox before rushing to cast a face for the trailers, Gunn is treating Diana like a cornerstone rather than a box to check. This universe was assembled with Superman as its sun; a properly built Wonder Woman could be its moral spine, the character who asks the harder questions the flag-waving hero doesn’t. That’s the version worth waiting for.
For now, the facts are simple and the ambition is not. A reboot is coming, it’s a priority, it has a writer, it does not have a Diana, and the door on the previous era is firmly shut. The lasso is lying on the ground, waiting. Whoever picks it up is going to inherit one of the most beloved and most scrutinized roles in all of superhero fiction — and this time, the whole DCU is counting on her.
What Do You Think? Is a full recast the right call for the DCU’s Wonder Woman, or does losing Gal Gadot cost the reboot more goodwill than a clean slate is worth? With Ana Nogueira writing both “Supergirl” and Wonder Woman, is a single unifying voice across the DCU’s heroines a strength, or a risk of everyone starting to sound the same? What should a new Diana stand for in this universe that Superman can’t — and who would you cast to pick up the lasso once the script is done?
See you on the next binge!
