Box Office: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ May Become The First Blockbuster In A Short Summer Movie Season

Depending on if the May, June and July holdouts also flee for safer dates, Wonder Woman 1984 could end up being the first movie of this unconventional summer movie season.

Alas, Wonder Woman 1984 is the latest (and arguably biggest) of the upcoming summer movie releases to vacate its intended release date. Thanks to continuing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed theaters nationwide (and impeded theaters in much of the world), the summer movie season has essentially been canceled, or at least delayed.

With Wonder Woman 1984 moving away from its June 5 slot, as well as Scoob (original slated for May 15) and In the Heights (June 26) vacating as well, pretty much every major movie in May and June has been delayed, save for (as of the moment) Candyman (June 12), Soul (June 19) and Top Gun: Maverick (June 26). And one of the big July releases, Minions 2: The Rise of Gru, is no longer opening on July 3. We’ll see if Chris Nolan’s Tenet (another WB release, slotted for July 17) and Walt Disney’s The Jungle Cruise (July 24) actually end up opening as planned, along with Free Guy (July 3), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (July 10) and Morbius (July 31).

While the animated Scoob and the Jon M. Chu/Lin Manual-Miranda musical have not been given new dates, the Gal Gadot/Patty Jenkins superhero sequel will now launch on August 14. No, they aren’t waiting until Christmas (so Dune lives for now), and they aren’t waiting until early October (where Gravity, A Star Is Born and Joker have launched to best-case-scenario numbers), but rather mid-August. It’s not quite the opening weekend of August, home to Guardians of the Galaxy, The Sixth Sense, Suicide Squad and The Fugitive over the decades, but it is where WB had already slotted James Wan’s original horror flick Malignant.

Alas, this means that the New Line horror movie, about which little is known, is presumably going to open later in 2020 (or early 2021, this is all speculation until it isn’t). It’s also, for what it’s worth, the perfectly solid mid-August weekend where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opened with $65 million against the second weekend of Guardians of the Galaxy and legged it out to $191 million domestic (and $491 million worldwide). Of note, the advantage of that slot is usually that it’s the last biggie of summer as kids get ready to go back to school.

That’s partially how Guardians of the Galaxy legged it to $333 million from a $94 million opening (still the leggiest MCU movie) and how Suicide Squad legged out to $325 million from a $133 million despite dropping 67% in weekend two. Point being, if summer more-or-less starts in August (or, at best, mid-July), Wonder Woman 1984 will be closer to the first movie of the so-called “summer movie season” as opposed to the last. It’s an odd situation, obviously unprecedented in modern cinematic history, but at least this closes the book on unfounded rumors about the DC Films flick heading straight to streaming.

And, yes, it is worthwhile that WB has actually picked a new date for Wonder Woman 1984, as the vast majority of the delayed movies have been left in release date limbo. The Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman vs. Cheetah movie joins Peter Rabbit 2 (from April 3 to August 7), No Time to Die (from April 10 to November 25, 2020) and F9 (from May 22, 2020 to April 2, 2021) in getting new release dates. Again, aside from having an available date (thanks to just subbing out a previously dated Warner Media title), this is as much about reassuring invested parties that Wonder Woman 1984 will indeed be getting a global theatrical release.

Yes, I am aware that theater owners are not thrilled about Universal’s choice to have Trolls: World Tour bypass theaters and debut on streaming concurrently with (where applicable) theaters. And while I am concerned about the whole “break the theatrical window” variable, I have to surmise that this is as much about Trolls: World Tour’s theatrical potential as opposed to losing faith in theaters overall. If Universal thought DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls sequel would likely earn $400-$500 million worldwide upon theatrical release (Trolls earned $346 million in 2016), they likely would have waited.

And if (104% speculation) WB decides to play a similar game with Scoob, that’ll be more about Scoob (a property that has already seen four live-action movies, nearly 500 TV episodes and 38 direct-to-DVD movies) than overall issues with movie theaters. WB’s Wonder Woman 1984 was never going to skip theaters because it’s a sequel to a much-loved movie that earned $412.5 million domestic (from a $102.5 million opening) and $821 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. As such, the DC Films adventure could earn anywhere from $650 million to $1 billion worldwide on a $200 million budget.

As long as big movies can still earn huge amounts of money in theaters, a streaming debut will have a limited appeal for lower-tier offerings. All that remains now is to see if the handful of major holdouts from May (Artemis Fowl, SpongeBob 3), June (Top Gun: Maverick, Soul, Candyman) and July (Free Guy, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Tenet and Jungle Cruise) take leave. If so, Wonder Woman 1984 may really end up being not the last big movie of the summer (as it would be in a conventional May-August season) but the first.