Things are getting feisty up in here for DC Films.
After announcing the sequel to Wonder Woman during Comic-Con last year, director Patty Jenkins just confirmed yesterday who the villain will be for the film. The villain will be longtime Wonder Woman foe Cheetah, and she will be portrayed by none other than Kristen Wiig.
Debuting in Wonder Woman #7 in August 1987, Cheetah is a feminine feline savage who cut herself with an Amazonian dagger, transforming her into a human/cheetah hybrid hellbent on getting back at Wonder Woman. Besides Ares, Cheetah is perhaps one of the more well-known Wonder Woman villains, and their rivalry has been featured multiple times in miscellaneous media, more recently in the NetherRealm Studios video game Injustice 2.
With that, it seems odd that DC would cast Kristen Wiig in a role as menacing and vicious as Cheetah. Don’t get me wrong, I like her as an actor. She was funny in Bridesmaids, and she was great in smaller roles for movies including The Martian and Mother!. Yeah, she was pretty ditzy in that terrible Ghostbusters reboot, but then again everyone was pretty bad in that movie. As comedian actresses go, Wiig is a reliable talent, and it definitely seems like she belongs in a superhero movie somewhere.
But to be completely honest, I don’t see it in a villain role. Wiig has mostly portrayed friendly, loveable characters up until now. She strikes me more as a love interest akin to Lana Lang or Vicki Vale, not a supervillain as spiteful or cruel as Cheetah is. I’ll admit, I’m curious to see how she will approach this portrayal as opposed to her other film roles in the past. But at the very least, I’m more confident in this casting choice than I was when Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Lex Luthor in Batman V. Superman.
What do you guys think? Are you excited to see Kristin Wiig’s Cheetah go head-to-ahead against Diana in Wonder Woman 2? Or do you wish she’d just stick to comedy?
Comment below, let me know.
– David Dunn
SOURCE: The Washington Post, Twitter
DAVID DUNN 