TV 'Wonder Woman' Not Going At This Time

The TV reboot of Wonder Woman is being postponed. David E. Kelley’s high-profile take on the female superhero has been shelved after not landing a deal at a broadcast network because of what sources called unfortunate timing. The project hails from DC sibling Warner Bros. TV where Kelley is based with an overall deal. The Practice creator Kelley had been looking to do a contemporary take on the World War II-era Amazon, and at the end of September, he met with the DC team, who also had been looking for ways to launch a new Wonder Woman TV franchise. Soon after the meeting, Kelley started working on a pilot script, which, like his other recent projects, was written on spec. The script was reportedly taken out to the broadcast networks on Wednesday night. Fox and ABC passed, while WBTV’s sister network the CW could not afford it. While the project was never considered a fit for Fox and was taken to the network mostly out of courtesy, the ABC pass was more politically motivated. With its empowered female lead, Wonder Woman seems well suited for the network, but word is a potential DC-Marvel clash got in the way. ABC parent Disney acquired Marvel last year for $4 billion, and ABC and Marvel have been busy developing Marvel properties, including a Hulk series with Guillermo del Toro and David Eick and an adaptation of a Marvel female superhero, Jessica Jones, with Twilight writer Melissa Rosenberg. This left CBS and NBC in play. I hear the CBS executive team was split, while the fluid situation at NBC where new programming chief Bob Greenblatt is yet to take the reins, made it impossible to get the type of license fee that the studio was seeking in order to do the show Kelley had envisioned. So a decision was made not to go with the show at this time. The script may be taken out again in the future.