Executives at WarnerMedia are reportedly meeting to decide what will happen next with their film slate – more specifically with their planned Christmas Day release of “Wonder Woman 1984” reports Deadline.
For now, Universal’s “The Croods: A New Age” on Thanksgiving weekend remains the start of the next round of potential studio releases with 20th Century Studios’ “Free Guy” arriving December 11th and “Death on the Nile” hitting December 18th, Warner’s “Wonder Woman 1984” and Universal’s “News of the World” opening Christmas Day, and Screen Gems’ “Monster Hunter” roaring the day before New Year’s Eve.
The Patty Jenkins-helmed DC comic sequel is, by far, the biggest of these films and Warners has made it clear there are no plans to bring it direct to streaming or via an early PVOD release – even as others scheduled for around that time like “Coming 2 America” and “Greenland” have made the jump to SVOD and PVOD releases respectively.
As P&A spending to market a Christmas release will have to begin its rollout by Thanksgiving at the latest (preferably sooner), the time is fast approaching for the studio to decide whether to go forward or to delay until sometime in 2021.
A delay seems possible as a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is currently sweeping quite a few international markets, especially Europe where cinemas are shutting down for at least the next month if not longer. Movie theaters in U.S. key markets like New York City and Los Angeles also remain closed.
Warner released the Christopher Nolan-directed “Tenet” in cinemas back in July at a time when the pandemic was far from over, and the soft results shook the industry and saw multiple films scrambling to abandon 2020 altogether for hopefully greener pastures in 2021.
If “Wonder Woman 1984” were to move, it’s thought likely the two 20th Century Studios titles would also move, effectively cancelling the year-end holiday moviegoing frame bar “News of the World” and “Monster Hunter” which are both likely to stay due to PVOD arrangements and mostly non-European market play respectively.
