Wonder Woman 1984 is reportedly on track to have the best opening weekend at the box office since the coronavirus pandemic began, despite the HBO Max simultaneous launch. Previously set to hit theaters in June 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 was delayed multiple times due to COVID-19 before receiving its final Christmas Day release. However, it was a while after the date was announced that WarnerMedia revealed the Wonder Woman sequel would also debut on HBO Max at the same time.
The decision to give Wonder Woman 1984 a simultaneous release in theaters and on streaming was the first step in WB's decision to shake up their release strategy. Even before announcing their entire 2021 slate would receive the same treatment, Wonder Woman 1984's HBO Max launch raised a lot of questions about the future of movie theaters. The movie is now out in theaters and on HBO Max and the response has been mostly positive so far. Even if Wonder Woman 1984 is no longer certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it appears the sequel is performing well - considering the circumstances - at the box office.
According to Deadline, the Gal Gadot-led sequel is on track to have the biggest opening weekend at the box office since the pandemic began. No official tracking information has been shared, but Wonder Woman 1984 is believed to be heading for an opening weekend in the low teens. Tenet opened to $9.3 million in August and was recently topped with The Croods: A New Age's launch of $9.7M over the Thanksgiving holiday. If Wonder Woman 1984 continues to perform well today and tomorrow, it is expected to surpass both totals.
The box office analysis and conversations surrounding Wonder Woman 1984's performance are quite complicated. On one hand, the sequel opening to less than $20 million would've been unfathomable a year ago. The original Wonder Woman surpassed all expectations and did more than $100M in its opening weekend, so this drop is significant. Of course, this isn't the fault of the movie, but it just goes to show that theaters are still not in a position to support massive releases. Only about 40% of theaters are even open in America, so there was no chance for Wonder Woman 1984 to come close to its predecessor. However, this also marks a sizable improvement on projections that Wonder Woman 1984 would open to half of Tenet's opening.
But, Wonder Woman 1984 is also not performing well overseas due to theater closures and lockdowns. At this point, it will just be fascinating to see how close Wonder Woman 1984 can get to Tenet's "disappointing" $362M worldwide gross. No matter what expectations WarnerMedia had for the film's box office in the middle of a pandemic, the success of releasing Wonder Woman 1984 now and in this format will only be determined once the company shares information on its HBO Max performance. The release of the film undoubtedly led to an increase in subscriptions, and it will be telling just how many more millions of people join the service to check out Wonder Woman 1984 instead of going to theaters. Hopefully, that data and Wonder Woman 1984's box office figures will become public before too long.
Source: Deadline
