Look, I’m on the record as being a big fan of Taika Waititi’s irreverent, color-blasted, anti-colonialist take on the God of Thunder with “Thor: Ragnarok,” so I won’t pretend I’m unbiased when it comes to the matter of what another director might have done with the film. Fortunately, Elizabeth Banks isn’t interested in convincing anyone my boy Taika wasn’t right for the job, either. “Nothing ever happened. No one called me. Taika Waititi got the job. Rightfully so,” she told Variety, regarding her “Ragnarok” pitch.
As for “Catwoman,” that’s an interesting prospect, in light of James Gunn and Peter Safran being appointed as the co-chair and co-CEOs of DC Studios. Gunn previously directed Banks in his 2006 cult sci-fi horror-comedy “Slither” and served as a producer on the Banks-starring 2019 superhero horror movie “Brightburn,” so it’s only natural that Variety would ask Banks if she has reached out to her old pal about working behind-the-scenes on his and Safran’s vision for the DC Universe. She playfully laughed off the idea, but made it clear that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be interested, should the opportunity present itself:
“I had a pitch for a Catwoman movie a while ago that I don’t think will fit into the mandate right now. But maybe someday.”
While it seems as though Banks would be afforded the room to make a far more audacious “Catwoman” movie under her buddy Gunn’s watch than she would’ve in the past, I might prefer for her to continue along the path she’s started down with “Cocaine Bear” and keep making the type of weirder genre movies the major studios tend to shy away from. On second thought, it’s probably best to hold off and revisit this conversation after “Cocaine Bear” opens in theaters on February 24, 2023.