Kate Beckinsale had the chance to play Wonder Woman in a film back in the 2000’s and passed on it. The recent release of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman has made more than $400 million at the US box office for Warner Bros., and has made more than $786 million over all.
Gal Gadot starred in the title role of this record-breaking film. Prior to its release, it seemed as if the super hero would never have her time on the big screen. She was stuck in pre-production hell, even almost having Joss Whedon write and direct her story. The Patty Jenkins treatment was all it needed to be rescued, but Gal Gadot wasn’t the first woman to be considered to portray the Amazonian princess.
Kate Beckinsale was actually an option for the Diana Prince character in the 2000s version of Wonder Woman that almost came about. The English actress had just completed the first Underworld film in that franchise. Being that it was heavily action-based and so would her new role as Diana, she turned it down.
In a new interview with Yahoo! Movies, Beckinsale states:
“I don’t know if I was desperate to be in a leotard. I’d already done the rubber trousers. You have to take in that you have a child at some point and how much could you possibly embarrass them.”
Costume decisions aside, she also wasn’t too impressed with Whedon’s approach with the script of the film. When Warner Bros. offered her the role, she respectfully declined. Though she has a huge fan base for her time in the Underworld franchise, she really doesn’t like the enormous amount of people that migrate to the Comic Cons each year, but more importantly, it takes a lot of training to get the choreography and stamina where it should be to have a film like that perfect.
On that note, she seems to have moved on from her action star role in Underworld, which she reprised and a film for the franchise was released just last year. She is in the drama film The Only Living Boy in New York, which releases tomorrow. Though she wasn’t interested in Wonder Woman, at least she is finding other work to keep her occupied, and her fans can rejoice in that.