In a move that appears to be universally cheered across the fan and film communities, Michelle MacLaren has signed on to direct Wonder Woman, which stars Gal Gadot and will be released in 2017. MacLaren is an accomplished television director, doing her most notable work on wildly popular series like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. She’s going to develop Wonder Woman as well, working with the currently unnamed writers as they craft the film.
I’m very excited about this. When news broke that Warner Bros. wanted a female director for Wonder Woman, MacLaren was at the top of almost everyone’s list, including mine. Her experience with Breaking Bad and Games of Thrones, as well as other programs like The X-Files and The Walking Dead, give her a great background in drama and action, and she’s been nominated for a variety of awards for her work. Plus she’s a Canadian, and that’s always a good sign.
Zack and Deborah Snyder are going to produce the movie, which is a bummer but expected. They’re all over Batman v Superman and Justice League, and are likely going to be producing most of the connected titles. Hopefully in a hands off manner; I’d really like to see MacLaren and the writers develop their own take on the character that’s not necessarily beholden to Snyder’s bleak and dour approach to superheroes. Everything we’ve heard about the plot thus far has all been rumours, and hopefully untrue ones, and it might be a while before any real, official plot points emerge, especially since MacLaren just signed on and will probably now have input on the project.
I remain concerned about Wonder Woman and the DC Comics cinematic universe generally, just because it’s been so dark thus far, but Michelle MacLaren directing Wonder Woman is a huge positive. She’s extremely talented, and I’m very curious to hear about her approach to the character. Hopefully we’ll get some interviews soon, and maybe some hints of what we can expect from the film. So yeah, well done, Warner Bros.! You finally hired somebody good! Keep it up.
TIM HANLEY 
I’m glad we have a talented director. I’m just not sure based on her past that we’re going to get a Wonder Woman that doesn’t murder and maim with impunity. I HOPE that is not the case, but her past projects have all been relatively dark and violent.
That’s a good point. She’s done a lot of dark stuff, but hopefully she has a good sense of the character and will take things in a less violent direction.
Good job on WB for hiring a good director who also happens to be a woman.
Now personally I am not terribly concerned about the movie being too dark or violent since it will obviously be PG13 and that puts a certain limit on that kind of stuff (though admittedly a PG13 does not prevent WW from killing lots of people with her sword, but hopefully they won’t go that direction). I am however concerned that the movie will either be too ham-fisted in its approach to the whole man-women-feminism-thing that you can’t really avoid with a character like Wonder Woman (like the animated film was), or on the opposite end of the spectrum, that they try to ignore the feminist overtones of Wonder Woman completely and just make her Diana: Warrior Princess. Hopefully hiring Michelle MacLaren will help the movie avoid falling in to either of those pitfalls.