Patty Jenkins Speaks Out; Women Talking and Scream 6 Trailers

Patty Jenkins gives her side of what happened with Wonder Woman 3; the trailers for Scream 6 and Sarah Polley’s Women Talking are good in very different ways; how John Fetterman got a part in the new Christian Bale movie. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.

Wonder Woman 3: The film’s almost-director, Patty Jenkins, is clearing up what she says are false stories about her exit from the franchise she launched. The gist: “I never walked away. I was open to considering anything asked of me. It was my understanding that there was nothing I could do to move anything forward at this time. DC is obviously buried in changes they are having to make, so I understand these decisions are difficult right now.”

Fetterman and Bale: Did you know Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman — you know, the guy who beat Dr. Oz — is old friends with Christian Bale? He’ll appear in the new Bale Netflix film The Pale Blue Eye, a kind of origin story for Edgar Allen Poe. Their friendship goes back to when Bale and director Scott Cooper shot their film Out of the Furnace in Braddock, Pennsylvania, when Fetterman was the town’s mayor.

‘I Will Become a Murderer If I Stay’: Here is the devastating, brand-new trailer for Women Talking, best viewed with no context.

That Looks Outstanding: Right?

Congratulations: We were delighted to see that one of the top scripts on The Black List 2022 was Haley Bartels’ Pumping Black, a tour-de-force about the Tour de France. If you’re thinking “inspirational sports movie,” no — it’s a thriller about blood doping that it so well-paced I read it in one sitting. It also has a fabulous midpoint reversal. Not sure what that is? Then you should read this terrific piece Haley Bartels wrote for us about how to craft a great one.

Also: Bartels was one of the 2021 Nicholl Fellows (also for Pumping Black) and you can to her and fellow fellows R.J. Daniel Hanna , Laura Kosann, Karin delaPeña Collison and Byron Hamel offer their thougts on screenwriting and contests on this episode of the MovieMaker podcast.

Speaking of Competitions: This Friday is the late deadline for the 26th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival. You can submit at Film Freeway.

Nantucket: The Nantucket Film Festival has a reputation for booking great guests, and lives up to it this year: Honorees at the upcoming 28th anniversary festival include Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me? and the upcoming You Hurt My Feelings) who will receive the Screenwriters Tribute Award; as well as Oscar-nominated documentarian Ken Burns and producing partner Emmy-award winner Lynn Novick, who will receive the Achievement in Documentary Storytelling Award. Jenny Han (The Summer I Turned Pretty and To Al the Boys I’ve Loved Before)  will receive the New Voices in Television Writing Award. The festival will also feature screenwriting sessions with Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi), Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa (Avatar: The Way of Water), Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) and — bringing it all together — Patty Jenkins. The 28th Annual Nantucket Film Festival will take place June 21 -26, and the Screenwriters Tribute will take place on Saturday, June 24, at the ‘Sconset Casino. I attended the festival for a day last year and enjoyed it a lot.

Scream 6: Just when we were all thinking, “What else can they do with the Scream franchise?,” they went ahead and moved it to New York City. Cool. Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera star this time around, which also features the return of Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed. (She’s not in this trailer… unless she’s wearing a mask.) Here’s the new Scream 6 trailer:

Main image: Jessie Buckley in Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polley.