A Pedro Pascal Movie Is Dominating On Streaming
A Pedro Pascal movie is topping the charts on streaming.
This article is more than 2 years old
Pedro Pascal is back in the news but this time it’s all good. His latest release in Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 is #2 with a bullet on iTunes in the world, a great accomplishment seeing as that reviews for the movie were less than positive.
Of course, you can’t mention Wonder Woman without first mentioning Gal Gadot. Gadot obviously headlines the picture but Pedro Pascal definitely makes his presence known. Pascal stars as Max Lord, a struggling businessman who has been in search of the mythical Dreamstone most of his entire adult life. This Dreamstone claims to grant the owner of it one wish.
The story finds our hero Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman in 1984, at a much different time and place than when we saw her in the first movie. Diana works at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and barely has the time to notice a new employee Barbara Minerva. But Diana begins to notice her when items that were stolen and recovered by Wonder Woman need to be identified. One of those items is the Dreamstone.
Enter Pascal as Lord. He tricks Barbara into stealing the stone for his use and instead of wishing to save his failing company, he instead wishes that he become the Dreamstone. Now Lord has the ability to grant anyone a single wish, causing mayhem and chaos across the globe.
Pedro Pascal’s performance was singled out as a positive in the movie. His character, according to director Jenkins, was inspired by both Bernie Madoff and Donald Trump (before he was president). She told io9, “I mean, honestly the funny thing is like, [Trump] is [an influence], but I’m not trying to make [a point],” Jenkins said. “I don’t want to get political, it’s not about [getting] political. Actually, a huge influence of this movie was also [convicted fraudster Bernie] Madoff.” Jenkins then added, “So yes, Trump’s definitely one of the people that we looked at, but it’s any of those kind of mavericks of business success that was big in the ‘80s [and] went on to be major players in our world in potentially questionable other ways,” Jenkins explained. “Yeah, I don’t have an agenda [or] have a political message to send to the world, but I think that the world all needs the same political message: everybody needs to look at themselves right now and our politics, our belief system of excess and stuff.”
As Lord continues to wreak havoc, he also grants Barbara her wish of becoming an apex predator. She is now Cheetah and is a formidable foe to Wonder Woman. But the one thing with the Dreamstone and the wish it grants is that if the wish is not renounced, it begins to take a toll on the user. Diana, who unknowingly wished Steve Trevor back to life, is starting to feel the toll of her wish as is Barbara. But both are unwilling to give their wish back.
Wonder Woman 1984 did not release without its share of controversy. Thankfully for Pedro Pascal, the controversy didn’t surround him, but the choice Jenkins made to have Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor come back in another person’s body (only Diana Prince could actually see Steve) and the moral implications that went with it (lack of consent in all forms).
As for Pedro Pascal, one could say the past couple of years have been hit and miss. On-screen, Pascal has the big Disney+ series The Mandalorian. The series has been a blessing and a curse for Pascal from wanting more facetime on the series to Gina Carano’s social media meltdown and eventual firing to his own controversy surrounding his social media status.
Those aside (we know, those are big issues), Pedro Pascal seems to have weathered the storm for now. His Din Djarin looks to be coming back this year, a bit later than the first two seasons, but Pascal appears to be back. With all the controversy surrounding the series and all the other Star Wars spin-offs on the way, it’s hard to say that The Mandalorian is taking a back seat but allowing it to breathe a bit and let things settle is probably a wise move by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and crew.
Unfortunately for those involved with The Mandalorian, there may be more controversy on the horizon. Pedro Pascal was recently announced to be taking on the role of Joel Miller in the HBO adaptation of the popular video game The Last of Us. It remains to be seen if Pascal will be able to fit both roles into his schedule as The Last of Us has yet to begin production. If so, perhaps with his new role allowing for a lot more facetime, Pascal will back off from wanting to take off his Mandalorian helmet.
