After the rebirth of old TV Shows like The Bionic Woman, Hawaii 5-0 and Battlestar Gallactica, many of you have been clamoring for a rebirth of Wonder Woman. You clamored even more when you heard it was on the table. Well, finally, it appears that the project is going to happen. It was just announced that NBC has decided to give the show a go.
The project is being touted as a reinvention (Yikes, that is almost never good) of the Amazon Princess, where Wonder Woman, also known as Diana Prince, is a ‘vigilante crime fighter in Los Angeles, but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.’
Oh Lord. I can hear the plot lines now. Steve Trevor didn’t call. Wonder Girl has a pimple. The cigar smoking boys at the office want to keep Diana under the proverbial glass ceiling. Nordstroms doesn’t carry a red hand bag with a white stripe to match her dubya-dubya boots. Hooey.
At any rate, we here at Smartasses are all in a ‘wonder’ as to who should play her part. If it had been twenty years ago, our defacto choice would have been Marina Sirtis of STNG Fame. She had the hair, the Greek look, and a softness about her that just would have clicked. To us, back then, it was literally like she was born to play the Amazon Princess of 1990, especially when you look at a few Brian Bolland covers for the comic.
Equally, if it had been ten years later, I think ninety percent of the planet would have wanted Lucy Lawless of Xena fame to trade in her leathers & shield for red, white and blue spandex and a Lasso of Truth.
But now it’s the Two-Thousand-and-Teens. For us, there is no definitive stand out any more. There are lots of leggy supermodels out there who can look the part, but we doubt any of them can act their way out of a paper bag. In that spirit, we all agree that Megan Fox would look great in the uniform, in fact, most of you have seen the fake Megan Fox Wonder Woman poster (above) out there. But I think we all realize nobody would truly take her seriously… so she’s off the list.
Instead, we’ve narrowed it down to eleven legitimate contenders, who all have shown some degree of acting ability in the past, and look good enough to don the colors.Here they are in no particular order:
1. Kim Smith – A former model who had a stint on Friday Night Lights, and bit parts in Van Wilder and Catwoman. She has the black hair, blue eyes and the face- but is she buff enough? We figure she’d be worthy of an audition.
2. Summer Altice – Another former model turned actress, cast in non blockbuster stuff such as The Scorpion King, Grind, and the Showtime program ChromiumBlue.com. Like Kim Smith above her, she’s definitely got the looks. She actually looks like she could be Lynda Carter’s sister. And as a former San Diego University volleyball player, she’s certainly got the athletic skills and the hard body to be worthy of consideration.
3. Olivia Wilde – Black hair, gorgeous eyes, the one chick Megan Fox would like to get busy with. Between The O.C. and House, she has a great resume. But can she handle the action? Can she be taken seriously? She might handle the businesswoman angle, but her ability to be believed as the second most powerful woman on the planet (behind Supergirl) could be a stretch.
4. Marie Avgeropoulos – She certainly looks Greek- she is Greek. She was in I Love You Beth Cooper. Maybe that’s not enough to give her the nod, but she did run around in the woods a bit with Stone Cold Steve Austin in Hunt To Kill, and she was on an episode of Fox’s Human Target. Is that enough?
5. Kristin Kreuk – Well there is certainly no doubt that she can handle the fight scenes after starring in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Additionally, being previously a part of the DC Universe with her role as Lana Lang on Smallville also has to look good on the old resume. But lately in her career she hasn’t been taken quite as seriously, and there would be little doubt in anyone’s mind that she is clearly not born of Greek origin.
6. Jessica Biel – With a little hair dye, there’s no doubt that she could nail this role down. With inherent ‘beauty’ (whether she’s your type or not is irrelevant, no one can deny that she is beautiful) and experience in action films such as Blade III – Trinity, she could be the perfect choice. The question is, is she too big to come back to TV?
7. Evangeline Lilly– What an interesting choice. She’s one of the ones that fan-boys around the Internet are giving a good dose of thumbs up for. The question is, what is she up to since her role as Kate Austen on Lost ended? It was rumored that after that series ended, that she was going to hang up the acting boots. But she’s still out there peddling shampoo. We think she could handle the action, and could possibly bring a quirky seductiveness to the role that makes her a very intoxicating choice.
8. Odette Yustman– We here at Smartasses are admittedly a little Odette Yustman biased, seeing as how she has made our top ten in the two year’s that she’s been on the Smartasses Top 100 Sexiest Women List, and we admit that the notion of her wearing a pair of blue contact lenses is definitely an intriguing notion. She proved how good she can look in The Unborn and Cloverfield, and also showed us her badass combat skills in Operation: Endgame. Certainly, there is no one here on the Smartasses staff who would have any problems being tied up in her magic lasso.
9. Natassia Malthe – You’ve likely never heard of her, but her list of action films and television roles is endless- Elektra, Blood Rayne: The Third Reich, In The Name Of The King 2, DOA: Dead Or Alive, and Dark Angel just to name a few. She certainly has the looks, and if NBC wants to go with an ‘unknown’, Malthe may just be their meal ticket.
10. Kate Beckinsale – We’re admittedly a bit shocked that her name hasn’t been tossed around in this circle a bit more than it has. Seeing as how her role in the Underworld trilogy basically launched her to a status worthy of Mount Olympus within the Sic-Fi-Geek circle. Clearly gorgeous, and possessing the correct cardiovascular skills, her only downfall might be her age (born in 1973) in the event that NBC is in this for the long haul.
11. Michelle Ryan– Along with Yustman (who is already busy with a couple of other TV shows), Ryan may be our number one choice. Wonder Woman is pretty invincible, but obviously, the show would be pretty boring if she were not vulnerable to something. Michelle, along with the blue eyes, dark hair, and solid body, brings along a certain vulnerability that to us, makes things interesting. We think Ryan has proven that she can kick ass with her starring role on Bionic Woman, proved that as a Brit from across the pond she can clearly fake the American accent, and what the hell, she’s obviously familiar with failed, resurrected 70′s TV shows on NBC.
