Wonder Woman 1984’s shock mid-credits cameo leaves fans stunned

Wonder Woman 1984’s shock mid-credits scene has left fans wondering what the future may hold for the franchise.

The top-secret surprise was left out of early screenings for critics, meaning only those who’ve paid to view the film in cinemas, or on streaming via the US service HBO Max, have seen it.

*Spoilers follow*

The mid-credits sequence sees original Wonder Woman actor Lynda Carter make her debut in the film franchise. Carter portrayed Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman in the classic 1970s TV series based on the character, and in Wonder Woman 1984 plays a legendary Amazonian named Asteria.

In an earlier scene in the sequel, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman tells Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) about Asteria, who was a warrior who sacrificed her life to protect her fellow Amazonian sisters. While Asteria fended off an invasion of male enemies, her sisters escaped to what would become their island nation of Themyscira.

Wonder Woman, meanwhile, dons Asteria’s famed armor in order to battle her own enemies: tyrannical businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and the villainous Cheetah (Kristen Wiig).

In that mid-credits scene, however, Asteria is revealed to not be as dead as legend tells. Instead she is very much alive in 1984 and played by Carter. The character is seen rescuing a group of Los Angeles citizens, and presumably living in secret from her fellow Amazonians.

The scene indicates that Carter may play a significant role in a Wonder Woman 1984 follow-up. “As a small glimpse of #Asteria is shown to us in the film, in one of the mid-scenes, I presume we can expect a film on her story as well,” wrote one viewer on Twitter.

A Lynda Carter cameo in the Wonder Woman sequel had been rumoured for several years. In 2017, Carter told People Magazine that she had been in discussions with director Patty Jenkins about appearing in the first film, but that they didn’t pan out.

“We were trying to get me in the first one, and we couldn’t make it work with our timing,” Carter explained. Appearing in the sequel was “really up to Patty,” she continued. “If it works in an organic way it’ll be great fun and it’ll be wonderful to do. Am I open to it? Absolutely. I adore Patty Jenkins, and it’ll be wonderful to do. But we’ll just see how that goes.”

In the run-up to Wonder Woman 1984’s release, Jenkins revealed that she, Gadot and Carter are in a group chat together.

“Linda is one of the first people I contacted when I started doing these movies, and she and I have become super good friends,” Jenkins explained during an appearance on Good Morning America. “In the last few years we’ve started a group text that we’re all three on, literally we all talked probably four times yesterday. So we text each other all the time, we talk about what’s going on, we talk about the movie release.”

Wonder Woman 1984 is playing in select cinemas across the UK now. From 13 January, the film will be available on VOD for a 48-hour rental from participating digital retailers.