Update: While at Comic-Con, Adria Arjona has revealed she hasn’t filmed scenes for Man of Tomorrow yet.
A rumor is making the rounds on social media that Maxima may have been spotted on the Atlanta set of James Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow, but even the account pushing it admits it isn’t sure what it saw.
The Atlanta Filming, which keeps tabs on productions shooting around Georgia, posted a very blurry photo said to be from the set, showing a woman who appears to be wearing shoulder pads.
That’s it. That’s the evidence.
According to the account, it previously joked about a woman in a red dress being Maxima, and now thinks this new mystery woman might be the Almeracian queen because, in its words, “She has the shoulder pads.”
In a follow-up post featuring Maxima comic art, the account walked things back even further, admitting the original sighting happened weeks ago — “I can’t remember lunch” — and that the woman it first thought was Maxima wore a red dress and a red wig, while the shoulder-pads woman in the new photo looks smudgy. The account summed up its own case as “A + B = shoulder pads.”
Even the commenters couldn’t make anything out, with one admitting they had no idea what they were supposed to be seeing, and another saying that zooming in on the blur looks like Adria Arjona.
Why it could be Wonder Woman
Here’s the thing about those shoulder pads.
When Arjona’s casting was announced back in April, Deadline reported she was playing Maxima, while The Hollywood Reporter said it couldn’t confirm the character and DC Studios declined to comment.
As we exclusively reported, our insiders say Adria Arjona is really playing Wonder Woman in Man of Tomorrow, not Maxima, and the confusion exists because Gunn wrote the character into the script as a placeholder that could go either way.
And Wonder Woman with shoulder pads is straight out of the comics.
Back in 2015, Diana debuted a new armored costume in Wonder Woman #41 from writer Meredith Finch and artist David Finch, complete with gold pauldrons on the shoulders and blades on the forearms.
So if the DCU’s Wonder Woman takes any cues from the New 52 armor, a costumed Diana spotted from a mile away is going to show the exact same silhouette: shoulder pads.
Who is Maxima?
Created by Roger Stern and George Pérez in 1989’s Action Comics #645, Maxima is the warrior queen of the planet Almerac who comes to Earth in search of a suitable mate and sets her sights on Superman. The oversized golden shoulder armor is part of her classic look, which is the entire basis for the guess.
A cosmic queen chasing the Man of Steel would fit a Brainiac movie, but right now the only thing supporting the Maxima sighting is a photo so blurry its own photographer isn’t sure what’s in it. File it under rumor.
Man of Tomorrow filming in Atlanta
Written and directed by Gunn, Man of Tomorrow has David Corenswet’s Superman teaming with Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor against Lars Eidinger’s Brainiac. Rachel Brosnahan, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Isabela Merced, Nathan Fillion, and Edi Gathegi all return, with Lanterns star Aaron Pierre also aboard as Green Lantern John Stewart. Catch up on everything confirmed so far in our complete Man of Tomorrow breakdown.
The film hits theaters on July 9, 2027.
We’ve also been told to expect big cameos and fan service because this “could be it” for Gunn and his DCU — possibly including Tom Brittney as Batman — while the standalone Wonder Woman movie remains stuck in the early stages.
So whether it’s Maxima or Wonder Woman under those shoulder pads, my money is on Diana. The same insiders who called the Daredevil: Born Again retooling months before the trades confirmed it say that’s who Arjona is playing, and a blurry photo doesn’t change that.
