After Ryan Murphy officially announced that the next season of American Horror Story would be subtitled “1984,” Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins couldn’t help but call him out. Though the franchises clearly have no connective threads whatsoever, Jenkins found American Horror Story’s title announcement amusing.

The follow-up to 2016’s debut for the Princess of Themyscira, Wonder Woman 1984 follows the titular DC hero to the mid ’80s, where she’ll do battle against the villainous Cheetah (Kristen Wiig), while also confronting other characters, including Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). As for American Horror Story: 1984, the new season is a follow-up to American Horror Story: Apocalypse, and it appears to pivot around the slasher genre - namely slasher movies from the 1980s. Now, the two projects share the same subtitle, and even though neither has anything to do with the other, Patty Jenkins still found reason to point out the similarities to American Horror Story co-creator Ryan Murphy.

Jenkins jokingly tweeted at Murphy, admiring the title for American Horror Story’s upcoming season. However, while the tweet begins with admiration, Jenkins catches herself mid-sentence, noting the fact that they’re both using the same subtitle for their respective projects. Murphy then replied to Jenkins, suggesting that Wonder Woman 1984’s title isn’t original either, citing George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Check out their exchange below:

As for the 1984 reference, Orwell’s 1984 is a 1949 novel that imagines a dystopian future in which war and government surveillance is the new norm. There have been a handful of adaptations - including one that was actually released in 1984 - and Paul Greengrass was originally attached to direct his own adaptation until it fell through. Now, it’s evident that both Wonder Woman: 1984 and American Horror Story: 1984 may draw inspiration from Orwell’s novel in one form or another.

Both the Wonder Woman sequel and ninth season of American Horror Story will be airing within months of each other, so it’ll be interesting to see how the two fictional worlds will depict the ’80s. In terms of possible inspiration, the superhero genre in 1984 included films like The Toxic Avenger and Supergirl - so it wasn’t exactly a golden age for the genre - while the horror genre in 1984 had films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Firestarter, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and C.H.U.D. (the latter of which was more than just a throwaway reference in Jordan Peele’s Us). Aside from Orwell’s source material, it won’t be long till fans see how these two franchises put the ’80s to good creative use.

More: 10 Facts We Already Know About Wonder Woman 1984

Source: Patty Jenkins, Ryan Murphy

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