![]() ![]() No matter, they say, what else transpires, the choice to release Wonder Woman 1984 in theaters and on HBO Max over Christmas should be viewed as a “success.Although rumored and discussed well before, Wonder Woman 3 was officially announced in 2020 just days after Wonder Woman 1984 was released. announcing a Patty Jenkins-directed/Gal Gadot-starring Wonder Woman threequel is a preemptive declaration. As such, no matter what else happens, Warner Bros. has to thus keep up the act, at least for this top-tier franchise. Had the film opened during normal times, it would have surely earned $750-$950 million worldwide and merited a threequel. To not make one would be a mega-phone declaration that the HBO Max plan failed and that Warner Bros./AT&T should have opened Wonder Woman 1984 in June of 2021. Whether Jenkins returns beyond a producer/executive producer role amid obligations to direct Disney’s Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, I’d bet on a third Wonder Woman premiering in theaters and (if we’re still in hell) HBO Max concurrently. Now, not getting a sequel is the most significant sign of a failure. In the proverbial olden days, a sequel was a surprise/reward following a successful run. ![]() Moreover, in an IP-driven era, announcing a sequel, even if it turns out to be a bluff, is the chief way of declaring the current film to be a success. There are, to be fair, maybe nine movies in some stage of development for every one that opens in theaters. Last I checked, Star Trek 4 and Green Lantern 2 are as closer to being made as Lionsgate’s made-for-TV Divergent 4. Paramount announced Star Trek 4, bringing back Chris Hemsworth as Kirk’s dead dad, days before Star Trek Beyond opened to a soft $58 million in July of 2016. announced (or at least teased) a darker, grittier Green Lantern sequel on the very weekend that the 2011 Ryan Reynolds sci-fi flick plunged 66% from its not-great $53 million opening weekend. I say this without judgment because we’re all adults, but it’s a smokescreen, a distraction, and an easy way to point at WW84 and declare it a success no matter how the numbers eventually add up. announced that they were fast-tracking Wonder Woman 3 (or whatever it’ll end up being called) right as they were reporting the better-than-hoped domestic grosses for Wonder Woman 1984. All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the question of whether or not Wonder Woman 1984 was a success is one that may be A) exceptionally complicated and B) unknown for months unless AT&T gives us hard data beyond the now compromised box office statistics. Those two latter titles might have gone to HBO Max anyway, but it’s a long wait before Mortal Kombat (April 16) and Godzilla Vs. Even if Wonder Woman 1984 did cause a rush of subscriptions and activations, will those subscribers stick around for the much smaller-scale likes of Denzel Washington’s The Little Things (January 29), Judah and the Black Messiah (February 12), Tom & Jerry (February 26) and The Many Saints of Newark (March 12)? And Pixar’s poor Soul launched on Disney+ concurrently with Wonder Woman 1984 to comparatively little online chatter, but that’s for another day. It’s also possible, especially if theatrical revenue doesn’t keep the movie in the spotlight, that the online discourse will vanish in a few days as everyone starts gabbing about Netflix’s third season of Cobra Kai on Friday. You can debate how that might backfire and cause me to, uh, renounce my wish. Yes, I would love not to have to guestimate the numbers that I’m supposed to be analyzing. That’s hugely speculative, but if that’s close to the reality, it would be almost equal to Wonder Woman’s $38 million domestic opening day in 2017. If that’s true, then $14.99 x two million = $30 million just on Friday, with no studio/theater split. However, Warner claimed that half of all “retail subscribers” watched the movie on Friday, meaning folks who signed up fresh for HBO Max, a number that is allegedly closer to four million. Getting consumers who didn’t realize they had access to HBO Max to do the work to become active subscribers is no small part in the choice to offer Wonder Woman 1984 on streaming alongside theaters. That means they either paid $15 a month to sign up or did the work to turn their existing HBO or HBO Go accounts into HBO Max subscriptions. There are around 13 million “activated” subscriptions for Warner’s new streaming platform (give or take any surge once AT&T made peace with Roku). ![]() But what about the HBO Max release? Unless AT&T comes out and says exactly how many subscribers watched the movie, we may have to guestimate. ![]()
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