Joss Whedon Defends Wonder Woman

Director Joss Whedon defended the nixed Wonder Woman script he penned for DC in the mid-aughts on the Avengers: Infinity War red carpet Monday. He also had a bit more to say about his Batgirl exit.

Shortly before Patty Jenkin‘s big-screen version of Wonder Woman hit theaters, an old script he wrote for a potential film adaptation was leaked online and slammed as sexist.

• “I don’t know which parts people didn’t like, but . . . I think it’s great,” he told Variety Monday night. “People say that it’s not woke enough. I think they’re not looking at the big picture.”
• He added that while he wasn’t “the most woke individual who ever lived at that time,” he stands by it.
• Back in February, Whedon announced that he was abandoning a Batgirl project a year into his bid to write, direct and produce a film about the heroine.
• “It had been a year since I first pitched the story,” he explained in a red carpet interview with Variety. “A lot happened in that year, and I felt some of the elements might not work as well. The story sort of crumbled in my hands. There were elements that I just hadn’t mastered.”
• He may have been referencing his personal life when he mentioned “a lot” happening. In August, his ex Kai Cole wrote an essay claiming he’d cheated on her numerous times and was not the “feminist” he claimed to be.