Even though previous television and comics versions have placed Wonder Woman in the past, Joss Whedon, who is serving as writer-director-producer of the iconic characterÕs upcoming film, insists she'll be living in the 21st century even though she may not be comfortable there, according to an interview with Now Playing magazine.

"It goes back to World War II," Whedon said about past incarnations of the Amazonian princess such as the 1970s ABC television show. "However, this will take place in the modern day, but Wonder Woman herself will never be in the modern day."

Translation: Wonder Woman, who will travel from Paradise Island to "man's world," will be "a fish out of water" in today's society.

Whedon did point out one important difference between Princess Diana and other big screen comic-book heroes.

"She doesn't have a villain as recognizable as Superman's Lex Luthor," Whedon said. "In fact, she doesn't have a lot of things as recognizable as a lot of the other heroes have, but that's not a problem simply because she's basically based on Greek mythology, which opens up a world of interesting possibilities."

"She's very different from anybody who might have been bitten by a spider or had his parents killed in an alley," he said.

Regarding the ever-present question of casting the prized lead role, Whedon said he isn't even thinking about that yet. "Casting is the last thing on my mind, and I'm happy to say it's the last thing on Warner Bros.' and producer Joel Silver's mind, too," he said. "We're like, 'Let's write the part! Then we'll have a better idea of who's good for it.' And we've talked about whether it should be someone famous or an unknown."

"Ultimately there are advantages to both, so nobody's thinking about that, except everybody," Whedon said about the endless Internet rumors.

As enthusiastic as he is about bringing Wonder Woman to the movie screen, Whedon said that he hasn't even started writing the actual script yet. He's still busy putting the final touches on the "Serenity" feature film, which is based on his Fox sci-fi/western series "Firefly." Aiming for a September 30 release date, Whedon said he wants to complete that project before turning his focus to Wonder Woman.

Of course, that doesn't mean he hasn't already begun thinking about where he wants to take Princess Diana once he really does begin working on her script.

"I'm working on it in the way that I always work on everything, which is that I think about it while I'm doing other things," Whedon said. "The reason I was able to take the Wonder Woman gig was that they don't have a release date and they don't have a schedule, and that means I have time to sit back and get it right. It will happen, but it's not like 'Bang, youÕre 10 weeks under the gun.'"

"The starting gun has not fired, but I always jump the gun anyway," he said. "When you have a product that rich you can't help but think of ideas for it, the same way I think of ideas for the 'Serenity' sequel that may never happen. We don't turn it off."