SciFi Wire
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=31056

Wonder Set In Modern Day
12:00 AM, 19-MAY-05

Joss Whedon, writer and director of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie,
told Now Playing magazine that the film will be set in the modern
world. The original story "goes back to World War II," Whedon told
the magazine. But, he added, "this will be in the modern day, but
Wonder Woman herself will never be in the modern day."

Who will play the part of Princess Diana? Whedon (Buffy the Vampire
Slayer) said that he hasn't even begun to think about that as he
finishes up his upcoming SF movie, Serenity, on which he's making
his feature-film directorial debut.

"[Casting] is the last thing on my mind, and I'm happy to say it's
the last thing on Warner Brothers' and [producer] Joel [Silver's]
mind, too," Whedon said. "We're like, 'Let's write the part! Then
we'll have a better idea of who's good for it.' And we've talked
about whether it should be someone famous or an unknown. Ultimately
there are advantages to both, so nobody's thinking about that. ...
Except everybody."

As for the story, Whedon said: "She doesn't have a villain as
recognizable as [a Lex Luthor]. In fact, she doesn't have a lot of
things as recognizable as a lot of the other heroes have. But that's
not a problem, simply because she's basically based on Greek
mythology, which opens up a world of interesting possibilities.
She's very different from anybody who might have been bitten by a
spider or had his parents killed in an alley."

Surprisingly, Whedon admitted that he hasn't begun writing Wonder
Woman yet. "There hasn't even actually been a whole deal signed and
everything [for Wonder Woman]. I'm working on it in the way that I
always work on everything, which is that I think about it while I'm
doing other things. But right now we're in the final stages of
wrapping up Serenity, and that's where my focus is. The reason I was
able to take the Wonder Woman gig was that they don't have a release
date and they don't have a schedule, and that means I have time to
sit back and get it right. It will happen, but it's not like 'Bang!
You're 10 weeks under the gun.' The starting gun has not fired, but
I always jump the gun anyway. When you have a product that rich you
can't help but think of ideas for it, the same way I think of ideas
for the Serenity sequel that may never happen. We don't turn it
off." Serenity opens Sept. 30.