8 Wonder Woman Movies and TV Shows You Never Got To See

2017’s Wonder Woman is a smash hit, both commercially and critically with box receipts surpassing $816 million and a “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It took a long time to get Wonder Woman on the air, but it wasn’t the first attempt. Not by a long shot. The TV series of the 1970s was the only successful live-action series, and it took decades to get to the 2017 movie. It’s time Geek Twins reviewed eight of the failed efforts of the past. You may have seen a few of these, but you’ve never seen them all…because no one has.

8. WHO’S AFRAID OF DIANA PRINCE? (1967)

The first attempt to bring Wonder Woman to any screen came in 1967 with a show called Who’s Afraid of Diana Prince? modeled off the 1966 Batman series with camp and comedic elements. Who’s Afraid of Diana Prince? would have been a sitcom about a meek and clumsy Diana Prince (Elle Wood Walker) living in a house with her domineering mother (Maudie Prickett). A test reel was shot that’s been leaked to the Internet, showing how Prince was fighting with her nagging mother to change into her Wonder Woman alter ego (Linda Harrison). A lot of the “humor” came from the mother whining about wanting grandkids and how Wonder Woman needed to wear galoshes. Apparently, the test reel was enough to kill the project, because the full pilot was never shot and the series was killed.

7. WONDER WOMAN (1967)

In 1967, CBS aired The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, a full 60-minutes of six-minute cartoon shorts about different DC superheroes. Superman, Flash, Aquaman, Hawkman, and Superboy all had quick adventures in the revolving series, along with Wonder Woman. The show was produced by Filmation and was so popular that the studio made plans to produce a Wonder Woman spin-off TV series. Unfortunately, CBS dropped those plans when they bought the animation rights to Superman and turned the show into The Batman/Superman Hour.

6. WONDER WOMAN (1974)

The first live-action broadcast of Wonder Woman came in a 1974 TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby. The movie was meant as a pilot for a TV series on ABC, but poor ratings meant the series never aired. Crosby’s version of Wonder Woman was based on what’s known as the “I Ching” period, where Wonder Woman had no powers and was more of a secret agent than a superhero. She was also blonde and didn’t wear the star-spangled bikini. The movie flopped, but it did lead the network to revamp Wonder Woman to become the twirling, swimsuit-wearing superhero we saw later in the 1975 version with Lynda Carter.

5. WONDER WOMAN AND THE STAR RIDERS (1992)

In 1992, Mattel made a shot at making a new toy line for girls based on Wonder Woman. Called Wonder Woman and the Star Riders, the concept combined the iconic hero with four other superheroines: Ice, Dolphin, Solara, and Starlily. The plan was to create a whole franchise for the property with toys, comic books, and an animated TV series. Mattel announced it at the 1993 Toy Fair and produced designs, storyboards, and test samples. A mini-comic of Wonder Woman and the Star Riders was included in boxes of Cinnamon Mini Buns, but the series never went much further.

4. WONDER WOMAN (2007)

In 2007, geek legend Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) announced he was working on a Wonder Woman movie to write and direct and even completed a script. The project fell through, but the completed script was leaked online so fans found out what it would have been like. The fans haven’t been kind. The story would have been told mainly through the eyes of Steve Trevor, who would have crash-landed on the island of Themyscira. Wonder Woman would have been a powerful but naive woman who Trevor would have to teach about humanity. Apparently, the studio (and many others) didn’t like his male-centered approach and the movie was scrapped.

3. JUSTICE LEAGUE (2010)

Wonder Woman has had more success on the small screen, where she’s been featured in many animated movies. We’re just months away from a Justice League movie starring Wonder Woman, but it’s not the first or last attempt. In 2004, Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series) announced plans to make a direct-to-video feature film to make the jump from the second season of Justice League to the first season of Justice League Unlimited. It would have also starred Wonder Woman. The movie was eventually scrapped, but the story involving the Justice League fighting the Injustice League was redone as 2010’s animated Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

2. WONDER WOMAN (2011)

Adrianne Palicki

In 2011, ABC announced a new live-action TV series based on Wonder Woman. Starring Adrianne Palicki as the superheroine with a script by David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal), there was a lot of excitement around the pilot which quickly turned negative. The series was scrapped and the pilot never aired but apparently, the network didn’t care for the tone of the new series. It would have had Wonder Woman as the owner of a company, struggling with workplace issues as a “modern woman” while fighting crime as a superhero. In other words, Ally McBeal with superpowers. Not what fans wanted to see.

1. AMAZON (2012)

Wonder Woman on “Harry’s Law”

In 2012, the CW Network announced plans to create a Wonder Woman TV series without Wonder Woman. Called Amazon, it would have been an origin story set before Diana became the superhero. Apparently, the first version would have been set on the island Themyscira and the second version would have had Diana Prince in high school. We don’t know much about the TV show because the show never got past the script phase. According to reports, CW ordered two versions of the script and finally passed on both of them. Probably just as well.

Which Wonder Woman media would you have wanted to watch? Which one are you glad you didn’t see?

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