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The recently-released Wonder Woman 1984 marks Connie Nielsen’s third appearance as the DC Extended Universe’s Hippolyta. The Gladiator actress debuted as the Queen of Themyscira in 2017’s Wonder Woman, and then she briefly appeared in Justice League months later. However, like so many elements of the latter movie, Nielsen’s scenes in the theatrical Justice League did not match what was shot for director Zack Snyder’s original vision for the superhero team-up tale, i.e. the Snyder Cut.
So when it was decided by the powers-that-be at Warner Bros to release Zack Snyder’s Justice League to HBO Max, Connie Nielsen requested two key things from the filmmaker when he called to ask for her blessing about the endeavor. As Nielsen recalled to THR:
Zack had already called me to ask if I would be okay with a reissue of the film with changes. And I asked him, ‘Well, will you bring back the Amazon chapter the way you had written it and had filmed it?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely,’ Nielsen shares. “And then I said, ‘And Zack, will you also bring back my quite incredible stunt, running up the walls?’ And he said, ‘You got it.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, definitely. You’ve got my blessing. Absolutely.’
Interestingly enough, unlike many of Justice League’s performers, Connie Nielsen mentioned that she didn’t participate in the Joss Whedon-helmed reshoots. However, the actress also noted that there was a fair amount of “stuff” from the Themyscira sequence shot during Zack Snyder’s time on the production that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut, so it was nice that Snyder assure Nielsen that the Amazon portion of Justice League would unfold as originally planned in the Snyder Cut. As such, it sounds like Nielsen is interested to see how this Elseworlds take on the fifth DCEU movie turns out.
For those who haven’t seen the theatrical version of Justice League lately, Hippolyta appeared when Steppenwolf landed on Themyscira to retrieve the Mother Box that the Amazons had been protecting since Earth’s forces thwarted the Apokoliptan general’s invasion of Earth thousands of years ago, with the other two Mother Boxes going to the humans and Atlanteans, respectively. The queen and her warriors tried desperately to stop Steppenwolf from stealing the powerful cube, but he escaped with it in hand, requiring Hippolyta to warn her daughter, Diana, about what happened. You can watch the scene below:
Thus far, Justice League marks Hippolyta’s only appearance in the modern day DCEU, with Wonder Woman showing the Themysciran queen during Diana’s childhood and in 1918, and Wonder Woman 1984 flashing back to a different part of Diana’s adolescent years. With both an Amazons spinoff and Wonder Woman 3 in development, it seems likely we’ll see Hippolyta again, and hopefully either one of both of those stories will pave the way for the queen to finally reunite with her daughter, who hasn’t been back on Themyscira since the final days of World War I.
As for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the titular director recently revealed that it will premiere on HBO Max next March (use the following link to sign up for the streaming service if you’re not already subscribed). Keep track of what the DCEU has heading to big screens in the coming years with our DC movies guide.
