Anna Daniels
Beckinsale didn’t clarify the exact timeframe of the Joel Silver-produced Wonder Woman project, but she was widely rumored to be in the mix for the role in the mid-2000s when she was at the height of her Underworld fame. That lends to the idea that Beckinsale may have been circling the role around the time Warner Bros. was pushing Joss Whedon’s version of Wonder Woman, written in 2007. Opinions continue to vary on what Whedon was planning for that film, but if Beckinsale was indeed reading his script, she was clearly not impressed.
Beckinsale first admitted as much when talking to Yahoo Entertainment in 2017, just after the release of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman. She noted, “The incarnations that I was seeing were… they weren’t this one [the 2017 film].”
That’s hardly a surprise, as the state of superhero cinema has changed dramatically in recent years — thanks in no small part to Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and the subsequent dawn of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given the wild success of Jenkins and Gadot’s Wonder Woman, it’s clear the world ultimately got the movie about Diana Prince that it wanted. Still, if you’ve seen Beckinsale in the Underworld films, it’s clear she might’ve made for a powerful Princess Diana had she taken the role years earlier.
Script issues aside, there were other factors that led her to pass on the role. “I don’t know if I was desperate to be in a leotard. I’d already done the rubber trousers,” Beckinsale told Yahoo Entertainment. “You have to take in that you have a child at some point and how much could you possibly embarrass them. That’s such an oppressive thing. If your mother is Wonder Woman, you’re gonna have issues.”
Hopefully, Beckinsale has indeed avoided embarrassing her kiddo (even in spite of her “rubber” Underworld get-up). Either way, she clearly doesn’t have any issues of her own about not playing Wonder Woman.
Written by: Looper
