Patty Jenkins

Patricia Lea Jenkins (born July 24, 1971) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has directed the feature films Monster (2003), Wonder Woman (2017), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). For her work on the pilot episode of The Killing, she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and won the Directors Guild of America award for Outstanding Directing in Dramatic Series. In 2017, she occupied the sixth place for Time's Person of the Year.

Beginning in junior high school, Jenkins took interest in photography, painting, and screen-printing. At age 20, while interning at a commercial production company, she heeded a suggestion that she could receive film training if she worked on set for free. After doing so for some months, Jenkins advanced to second assistant camera and focus puller, then spent eight years as a cameraperson. While shooting a Michael Jackson music video, her director of photography recommended that she attend the American Film Institute to learn directing. She later made a superhero short film that played the AFI Fest. There she met Brad Wyman, who later introduced her to producer Donald Kushner, leading to her directing her first feature film, Monster (2003).

In October 2011, she was hired to direct Thor: The Dark World, the first sequel to 2011 superhero film Thor, but left the project after less than two months due to creative differences. In 2014, she was attached to Sweetheart, a film about a female assassin, but that film was never made. In 2015, Jenkins signed on as director for the DC Extended Universe film Wonder Woman, with a screenplay by Allan Heinberg and a story co-written by Heinberg, Zack Snyder and Jason Fuchs, and starring Gal Gadot. The film was released in June 2017 and gave Jenkins the biggest domestic opening for a female director, surpassing previous record holder Fifty Shades of Grey by Sam Taylor-Johnson. With this film, Jenkins also became the first female director of an American studio superhero movie. This film helped Jenkins become admired by critics and liked by fans and audiences. This movie grossed over $800 million worldwide, exceeding box office original predictions on how the film would perform in theaters. Wonder Woman eventually became the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, surpassing previous record holder Mamma Mia! by Phyllida Lloyd.

In September 2017, Variety reported Jenkins would return to direct Wonder Woman 2. However, on MTV's "Happy, Sad, Confused" podcast, Jenkins revealed that she considered walking away from the sequel due to salary dispute between her and Warner Bros.

Wonder Woman 1984 was scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on June 5, 2020, but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release was delayed until December 25, 2020 worldwide. It had originally been scheduled for November 1, 2019. She has been negotiating the terms of her contract with Warner Brothers for an estimated 7 to 9 million dollars, which would be a record breaking salary for a female filmmaker. She signed on to the first film with no guarantee of directing a second film, but envisioned the second one during the making of Wonder Woman, which turned out to benefit her greatly. When she was signed on to do the second film, she had the ability to get a much higher salary than she would have if she had been signed on to do both films from the beginning. Her goal with her negotiations were to make sure she would get the same salary that her male counterparts would be getting for doing this movie and she seems to have succeeded.

Jenkins, Wonder Woman actresses Gal Gadot and Lynda Carter, DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson, and U.N. Under-Secretary General Cristina Gallach appeared at the United Nations on October 21, 2016, the 75th anniversary of the first appearance of Wonder Woman, to mark the character's designation by the United Nations as its "Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls". The gesture was intended to raise awareness of UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 5, which seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030. The decision was met with protests from UN staff members who stated in their petition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the character is "not culturally encompassing or sensitive", and served to objectify women. As a result, the character was stripped of the designation, and the project ended December 16.

Connie Nielsen (who plays Hippolyta in the Wonder Woman franchise) said that Jenkins fought for feminist themes to be included in the Wonder Woman film and rejected the idea of including a controversial origin story for the Amazons which portrayed them as victims rather than warriors.