UPDATE, October 5: James Gunn has now posted his private texts with Frank Grillo over a fan poster showing Arjona as Wonder Woman. Gunn told Grillo handling it publicly was “beneficial to us.”
There’s now money riding on the question DC won’t answer.
Adria Arjona sat down with Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused to promote A24’s Onslaught, and Horowitz went straight at her Man of Tomorrow role.
“There’s conjecture that she’s playing a character named Maxima, or there’s conjecture that she’s playing a character known as Wonder Woman,” Horowitz said in his intro. “I have no inside intel. I just know what I believe, which is I’m guessing she’s Wonder Woman. And I think she’d be a hell of a Wonder Woman.”
Then he put a number on it.
“I’ll bet you $500 you are playing Wonder Woman,” Horowitz told her.
Arjona wanted both sides covered: “And what about Maxima? You got to give one for one.”
The final terms: if she’s Maxima, Horowitz donates $500 to a charity of her choice. If she’s Wonder Woman, he collects.
“We’ll take that bet,” Arjona said.
They sealed it staring each other down: “Unbroken eye contact.”
As Cosmic Book News exclusively reported on June 28, our insiders say she’s Wonder Woman, the same insiders who told us Hal Jordan dies in Lanterns five months before the episode aired, and that Daredevil: Born Again was getting retooled.
DC Studios and James Gunn have still never named her character.
“You Can Punch Me In The Face If I’m Lying”
Horowitz set the bet up with a story about the last time this happened to him.
Years ago, he asked Jason Momoa about the rumor he’d been cast as Aquaman. “He denied it, and he said to me, ‘Josh, I’m not Aquaman. You can punch me in the face if I’m lying to you,'” Horowitz recalled.
Momoa was Aquaman. “He let me punch him many years later. I mean, I bopped him,” Horowitz said.
That’s the point of the story. A flat denial kills the question, and actors are allowed to lie about casting.
Arjona had that exit open the entire interview. She never used it. She never said Maxima, and she never denied Wonder Woman.
The closest Horowitz got was the costume. Asked if she’d call it epic and iconic, he offered her the out: “You could say that if you’re playing Maxima.”
“I love unbroken eye contact. What happened to that?” Arjona shot back. “Hello. I’m over here.”
Pressed again, she gave this much: “I love my costume. Really like my costume.”
When Horowitz noted that both characters have great costumes in the comics, she asked what that meant, then waved it off: “I can’t talk. Yeah, we’re good. I’m going to do the rest of this interview in Spanish. Something got hot in here, right?”
She Knew The Role When She Auditioned
The most direct answer came from the simplest question.
“Did you know what role you were auditioning for when you went in?” Horowitz asked.
“Um, yeah,” Arjona said.
That’s a first. Until now, every question about the role got the family answer she gave at Comic-Con and repeated numerous times: Gunn and Safran gave her her first movie, and that’s all she’ll say.
Now she’s confirmed she knew exactly who she was reading for before she walked in. She just can’t say it.
“I’m sworn to secrecy,” Arjona said in the episode’s cold open. “And I don’t like secrets. I hate secrets. I’m so bad at them.”
She also showed off a Superman chain hanging on her purse: “They gave that to me.”
And she called the shoot a full-circle moment with the two men who gave her The Belko Experiment: “I’ve known Peter for a really long time. I’ve known James for a really long time. They’re like the head of DC.”
Everyone Keeps Landing On The Same Name
In her Women’s Health training video, Arjona called the part “the woman I’m playing,” the role she built a superhero body for, with scenes that shot in the final weeks before the film wrapped.
Deadline printed Maxima in April and now calls the role undisclosed. Per our August 12 reporting, insiders say her Wonder Woman is more of a cameo, in a movie Gunn stacked with fan service.
The bet comes due July 9, 2027, when Man of Tomorrow opens.
Horowitz picked Wonder Woman on a guess. Our insiders gave the same name in June. And Arjona — who knew who she was playing before she ever walked into the audition — took the bet anyway.
Related
- Adria Arjona Is Wonder Woman In Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow (Exclusive)
- Adria Arjona Shows Off Her Wonder Woman Training: “The Woman I’m Playing”
- Adria Arjona Won’t Deny She’s Wonder Woman At Comic-Con: “I’m With Family”
- Adria Arjona Filmed Man of Tomorrow In Its Final Weeks
- Man of Tomorrow: Everything We Know
