A box office analyst predicts Wonder Woman 1984 will change dates a fifth time and move into either February or June 2021, making it the latest in a line of potential blockbusters vacating their 2020 release dates amid the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread theater closures. Already the last big-budgeted movie holding onto a theatrical release this year following No Time to Die moving out of 2020 and Soul shifting to straight-to-streaming, the Wonder Woman sequel is presently on its sixth release date. Warner Bros. has reserved a Christmas opening day for WW84, but expectations are Gal Gadot‘s Amazon warrior won’t return until next year.
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“Optimistically, there’s a window for a big tentpole around the Presidents and Valentine’s Day holiday weekend in February since Marvel’s Eternals vacated that spot,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Box Office Pro, told Observer. “That could be a good fit if the fall and winter fight against the virus goes better than expected and New York, alongside Los Angeles, reopen theaters by then.”
A Disney shuffle moved Eternals off its February 12 date and later into 2021. There’s now a next summer slot for WW84 following a freshly announced delay for Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion, which will roar to life one year later in June 2022.
“Perhaps more realistically, June 11 looks like a great spot,” Robbins said. “Universal just left that weekend wide open with Jurassic World: Dominion’s delay to 2022. It would allow a two-week gap after F9 and a two-week head start on the Venom sequel, both of which will be predominantly male-driven anyway. It’s also part of the early summer corridor where the first Wonder Woman enjoyed so much success.”
The Fast and the Furious sequel was among the first movies to race out of 2020 entirely: Universal announced a 10-month delay on March 12, recently delaying it another eight weeks to May 28, 2021. And Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, once set for October 2 of this year, won’t swing into theaters until June 25.
Other tentpole movies to abandon 2020 include Marvel’s Black Widow, once dated for May and then November of this year, Top Gun: Maverick, once set for June and then December, and the animated Minions: The Rise of Gru, planned for this July before suffering a year-long delay.
First scheduled for release on December 13 before moving up to November 1, 2019, Wonder Woman 1984 encountered its first delay when Warner Bros. shifted its date to June 5, 2020. The first COVID-caused delay occurred in March, kicking WW84 to August 14, and moved to October 2 in the wake of a two-week push back for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.
In September, WW84 landed on December 25. Warner Bros. changed course when the Denis Villeneuve-directed Dune, previously set for November 20 and then December 18 of this year, moved onto The Batman‘s date of October 1, 2021. The Bat-reboot starring Robert Pattinson now opens March 4, 2022, and Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, once set for late 2021, is now undated.
Addressing persistent speculation about a streaming release in an October 7 tweet, director Patty Jenkins wrote, “Direct to streaming is not even being discussed. We are still 100% behind the theatrical experience for #WW84 and supporting our beloved theater business.”
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal, Wonder Woman 1984 is currently scheduled to open in theaters on December 25.
