Warner Bros. started off its massive, two-plus hours panel at San Diego Comic-Con’s cavernous Hall H with a strong showing of Wonder Woman that emphasized a superhero for all audiences, not just female ones.
Gal Gadot, who plays the DC Comics’ Amazonian princess, said her goal was to make a film enjoyed “not only girls, not only boys, but for men and women, too.”
Gadot, who was joined on the panel by stars Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen and director Patty Jenkins, said before commencing filming, she watched a documentary on the real Princess Diana, Diana, the Princess of Wales. One of the lines that stuck with was a description of Diana leading from her heart, not from her head.
“That describes this Diana,” Gadot said. She also described how she undertook two hours of weight training, two hours of sword training and two hours of horse training every day in preparation for the role.
Jenkins, meanwhile, told of the impact a certain superhero movie had on her as a child.
“In 1978, when Superman came out, that movie made me have an experience that I had never before. I cried for Superman, I wanted to be Superman. That’s the most powerful artistic experience I had as a child.”
Jenkins added, “To play this pool of universal emotions and to get to be part of something big and beautiful is a dream come true.”
“Have you never met a man before? What about your father?” asks Pine’s fighter pilot Steve Trevor.
“I had no father. I was brought to life by Zeus,” answers the Amazonian princess, with Trevor responding, “Well, that’s neat.”
In Hall H, one line in particular got the biggest applause of the trailer — when Wonder Woman meets Steve Trevor’s secretary, Etta Candy (Lucy Davis) prompting her to ask, “What is a secretary?”
“I go where he tells me to go and do what he tells me to do,” says Etta. Wonder Woman’s response? “Where I’m from, that’s called slavery.”
Wonder Woman will open in theaters June 2, 2017.
