Kristen Wiig Is in Talks to Play the Villain in Wonder Woman 2

The Wonder Woman sequel is close to locking down another high-profile Hollywood star. Deadline reports that Kristen Wiig is in talks to play Cheetah, the main villain in the upcoming Wonder Woman 2, opposite Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. According to Variety, Wiig was always one of director Patty Jenkins's top choices to play Cheetah in the sequel—enough so that Jenkins discussed the role with Wiig before leaving town to scout locations for Wonder Woman 2.

So who is Cheetah, anyway? That’s a surprisingly tricky question to answer, because a bunch of women (and one dude) have taken on the mantle since Cheetah was first introduced in a 1943 issue of the Wonder Woman comic. Sometimes depicted as a woman in a Cheetah suit, and sometimes depicted as a kind of half-woman, half-cheetah hybrid, the modern version (and the likeliest candidate for the movie) is Barbara Minerva, a British archaeologist who gets turned into the Cheetah by a deathless plant god called Urzkartaga. (Don't ask.)

Cheetah's superpowers include your standard-issue super strength and super agility, as well as some extremely deadly claws. If you want a taste of what she can do, here she is using all of those deadly talents in last year's video game Injustice 2:

Of course, there’s always the chance Wonder Woman 2 comes up with its own riff on the character The sequel will reportedly be set in the midst of the Cold War during the '80s, and has already been slated for a release date of November 1, 2019.