Big news in the world of cinematic yuletide superheroing today, as Variety reports that Warner Bros.—i.e., the house that Tenet failed to build—has swallowed its pride in the face of a global pandemic and announced that Wonder Woman 1984 will be debuting in the United States on its HBO Max service this Christmas. While the film will release in (open) theaters in international markets on that same day, the film will launch in the U.S. as one of the biggest streaming titles to date, going head-to-head with Pixar’s Soul, which will also be releasing on December 25 on Disney+.
As with pretty much every major movie that was in production or near completion when the COVID-19 crisis hit, Wonder Woman 1984 has spent the last year bouncing all over the schedule, trying to find the sweet spot that’ll allow it to recoup its reported $200 million budget without, you know, killing a whole bunch of people. Warner Bros. is presumably banking on it doing well enough internationally to buffer some of the pain of it getting a VOD American release; the original Wonder Woman was a strong performer in foreign markets, where it ended up bringing in roughly half of its ultimate $800 million box office take. Now it’ll presumably be a major draw for new HBO Max subscribers, ahead of the already extant comic book nerd bait of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Set in the titular year, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 sees a returning Gal Gadot and Chris Pine trying to figure out why Pine’s Steve is suddenly back to life amidst the neon tide of Reagonomics, while also fending off evil schemes from Kristen Wiig, as classic Wonder Woman villain Cheetah, and Pedro Pascal as evil business dude Maxwell Lord.
Update: Warner Bros. has sent along a press release, clarifying a few more details about the film’s debut. Wonder Woman 1984 will release in international markets a week ahead of its U.S. debut, arriving in available theaters on December 16. (It’ll also open in those U.S. theaters where it can, although that won’t be until December 25.) Meanwhile, the film will only be available on the U.S. version of the streaming service for a single month.
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So…Wonder Woman 1984 for new Christmas tradition, then?
My copy of Die Hard on VHS broke last year. I’ll take this as a sign.
This picture means I’m going to have to grab my Moonlighting season 1 DVDs!
No surprise. All these films are financed by bank loans. Studios never pay out of pocket and the interest on everything shot before the pandemic is starting to add up. No studio, not even Disney, can afford to sit on these films. Warner Brothers and HBO are owned by the same parent company and HBO Max needs some serious bait to hook new subscribers so this makes perfect sense. Everyone is going to take a big loss on the films they are sitting on but there is no alternative. Thanks, every asshole who couldn’t stay the fuck home these past few months.
If nothing else, transferring the movie to HBO Max lets them move the debt from one pocket to another, and gives them a chance to renegotiate the vig.
how…Wonder(Woman 184)ful!
Wonder(Woman 184They made 183 of those?
Please god no Orwell references.
Challenge accepted!
and Pedro Pascal as evil business dude Maxwell Lord.I’m gonna remind people that Maxwell Lord having anything to do with Wonder Woman, let alone being a villain, was the result of a retcon Geoff Johns made to his character in Countdown to Infinite Crisis.Before that he started out by weaseling his way into the public face of the JLI.He later earned their respect and was even made an honorary member of the team. Martian Manhunter even scanned his mind and found he had no ill intent.But then Geoff Johns did what Geoff Johns does and retconned it that she was evil the whole time, shot Ted Kord in the head, and than got his neck snapped by Wonder Woman.
and it was all part of his Plan to kill and abuse the “funny” Justice League Geohns hated it but Geoff Geohns sucks he’s the kind of guy who’d take all the red paint from the Parthenon and tell you it looks better white
I suppose they had to do something with the character after Booster Gold turned out not to be the next hot property.
…neat
Ugh, that still makes me so mad after all these years.
I mean… you couldn’t have two people with “-ord” surnames occupying the same universe, right? Makes sense to me!
I didn’t HATE the retcon of Maxwell Lord, as the original character was just kinda… meh. Just a smarmy kinda 80s yuppie. The evil version was at least a little more interesting. And Pedro Pascal seems like he’ll capture that pretty well. He basically played that kinda secret villain in Kingsmen.
However, making him a metahuman was a little much.Also, I didn’t HATE Peter Facinelli’s Max Lord on Supergirl. They never really resolved which way they were going with him. Hey, remember when Peter Facinelli was on Supergirl?!
Johns didn’t make him a metahuman. That came in the original JLI run after the Invasion storyline. He lost his powers eventually, but Johns simply brought them back.
Everything Geoff Johns touches turns evil or to shit. Or both.
he was part of Cadmus in Justice League Unlimited. The episode with the fake Wonder twins in it. He was the one handling the clones. So he was made the bad guy before Infinite crisis.
To be fair, the episode aired in November of 2004 and Countdown to Infinite Crisis came out in March of 2005. It’s likely that Lord being a villain in the JLU were influenced in part by John’s plans for the character in Infinite Crisis.
I new it was so close but wow that’s how close they were. Yeah, it probably had to do with the comic storyline they knew they were doing.
OMG??? Really? I had no idea? I’ll definitely organize a boycott now! How could they! Why even produce and release the film if this is true?
I am in fact hoping that a lot of the VOD releases we’re getting this year will get re-releases after this pandemic is over. I’m probably gonna get Tenet regardless, but regardless of whether or not I understand what was happening, I’m looking forward to those set pieces on IMAX screens.I may not be as up to watching the Cheetah transformation on the large screen, but hopefully the rest of the film will hold up.
I enjoyed the first Wonder Woman and am looking forward to this one as well. I have no idea how many movie theaters will survive this pandemic. For me the experience of watching something in theaters is special in a way that no home entertainment system can match. It would be cool if some of these films get rereleases someday.
This combines two of my favorite things, ass-kicking Amazon babes and not leaving my house.
Yeah, if there’s one good thing to come out of this idiotic mess we find ourselves in, I’m hoping it’s that I never have to go to a movie theater again. I mean, let’s face it, there’s probably a VERY HIGH correlation between every asshole you’ve ever encountered in a movie theater and people who think wearing a mask is threatening their God-given Constitutional freedoms.
Movies have been a failing business model forever, as more and more people realise you can watch literally anything you want, whenever you want, at home in your socks and it doesn’t cost tickets + parking + babysitter + ludicrously expensive snacks. To the extent movies survive, it’s either event theatres, where it’s a community/social thing, like the Alamo drafthouse, or IMAX or those theatres where they serve you snacks, which are even more expensive and therefore even more rare. Or awkward teenage first dates or people desperate to get out of the house. For people to sit in a dark room next to strangers eating, drinking and talking, the pandemic will have to be 100% fully, smallpox-level, over. Even then the industry isn’t going back to normal. I don’t know what happens, but “Huge sfx budget movie that gets crazy-hyped and makes everything opening weekend, and foreign markets) probably isn’t it.
For some, it’s just nice to get out of the house and be somewhere else for a while. The darkened room helps with the sensation of leaving life as you know it behind for a while. I watch a hell of a lot of movies at home, but I have to admit it really isn’t quite the same. Before this all started, I would routinely go to revivals of my favorite films in theaters, even though I’d seen them multiple times. They really do take on a whole different quality in a cinema.
Going to the movies- it sounds corny to compare it to going to church. But for some of us, it really is like that in a lot of respects.
THIS. I live alone and going to the cinema, if I had no other plans, was a way to get out of the house on a weekend afternoon and properly watch a film as well. Watching at home doesn’t compare and I don’t have the space (or money) for some fancy cinema set-up in my one-bed flat, thanks.
For a number of years now, my local theater chain has been running a best-picture festival before the Oscars. I’m critically aware enough to know that the Academy’s meritocracy is dubious at best, but it’s fun to hang out with other cinephiles and share our thoughts about the movies. This year, I have a feeling there isn’t going to be any meaningful festival event. Even if they put something together, I think I’m going to sit it out.
That’s true. There’s still that element, which is where “awkward first dates” came in. But people are doing it less and less, as the numbers show. And they’re not buying the food, which is where theatres make most of their $$$. Movie theatres can’t survive unless every patron buys at least 5000 calories per movie, plus drinks. And who do you know who buys food at the movies?
“Failing business model”? Pandemic aside, movie theaters didn’t seem to be having trouble staying in business.
The movie theater business model has always been stupid. They make virtually nothing on ticket sales for blockbusters for much of its run, so they have to sell concessions at unreasonable prices (an affront to consumer value that I’ve always gotten around by just wearing cargo pants and buying snacks beforehand). The smart thing a lot of major theater chains have been moving to lately has been to emphasize the luxurious “night out at the movies” experience—nice seats, better food/drink, alcohol allowed during the movie, and other amenities—to tempt people out of their home-streaming routine.But, yeah, it’s gonna take some time to get back to feeling safe at the theaters…for me, at least. I have a feeling the unwashed masses will have no problem packing the theaters once this pandemic shit looks close to the finish line and restrictions start getting lifted.
Exactly! I think that was one of the things I mentioned. As an aside, how weird is it that “movie concessions” are even a thing? Like how did we decide that sitting in the dark = eating popcorn? It’s so arbitrary. Movies! Where you overpay for mediocre food you can get anywhere and don’t even pay attention to it to enjoy it! That’s why I don’t understand the fancy theatres where they serve you food and I can’t see them as anything but a novelty.
Alamo is, in my opinion the MOST overratted theater experience, and usually my last-resort option if I want to see a popular movie on opening weekend. The only time i don’t mind the Alamo Drafthouse experience is when it’s a movie I’ve already seen or a movie I don’t care about. Saw a 10AM movie there once during some Star Wars or Marvel movie opening weekend, and of course I hafta order a breakfast sandwich. And as much as a like a runny egg in an bacon, egg, and cheese, a dark movie theater is the wrong place to serve that.
I think we’ve all had those magical moments such as a hushed and then shell-shocked audience shuffling out of a theater after watching Saving Private Ryan or Captain America wielding Thor’s hammer or a shocking moment where everybody jumps in their seats. You can’t replicate that in a home theater no matter how big-ass of a television you buy.
But you probably won’t catch anything contagious from some slob coughing his brains out sitting one row behind you, so there’s that.
Buy a giant ass TV and a Sonos sound system and yer good to go. While I was working away from home for a year my wife insisted on a 75″ model and it’s amazing.
I bought a 60 inch TV a few years ago, and in retrospect i maybe should’ve waited, because there’s no way the spouse is letting another giant TV into the house, and as middle aged people we still come from a generation where people kept TVs for 15 years.
This. My only trips to the movie theaters before the pandemic were for Marvel and/or Star Wars movies … i.e. LOUD movies tht were meant to be a group celebration. Otherwise, people are simply incapable of sitting quietly for several hours in a movie theater, and the constant noice (seat jostling, getting up and down, surreptitiously checking iPhones as buzz on silent, talking, etc.) drives me batshit crazy, epsecially as I get older. I made the mistake of seeing Die Hard’s re-release a few years ago in a theater. Thankfully, I know pretty much every line of that film, so I was not THAT distracted by the 6 or 7 year old whose father thought that this was an approproate movie to bring him to, and who kept asking “Whose that guy? Is he dead?” …
For a while a few year ago I went to the movies a lot, when there were reserved, reclining seats, which made the experience much less stressful. But for some reason almost everyone going to those movies at night ACTED like they were at home, showing up in pajamas and slippers. I found that particularly irksome, and it was definitely a predictor of how they were going to act during the movie.
Well, I guess you won’t be going all the way to see Amazon Women on the Moon, then.
You, me, virtual watch party?
Oh baby, what great news!
Disappointing, but not altogether surprising. I’ll miss having the big screen experience with this one, and it’s a lot harder to make Event Viewing under these circumstances, but it’s also preferable to a lot of people dying.That being said, I’ll happily shell out money to both watch and support the film, as I want them to make more than enough back on their budget to justify a third.
Sweet! That means it’ll be available to the rest of us mere minutes after its debut.
Yeah that’s weird. Surely in 2020 studios know that as soon as a movie is released in one place it’s released everywhere. Maybe it’s the other direction – make sure the people in foreign markets see it in person.
They updated the article. It goes to theaters a week before internationally in case you were questioning that.
The captain is implying it will be on all pirate services moments after it’s on max.
Well yeah as always.
I’d prefer to see it in theaters, but I have serious doubts my small town fleapit will ever reopen, let alone by Christmas.
Oh. Well yeah, how this all works after is questionable. I am also sick of people making stupid predictions about how it all will for clicks, but that’s besides the point. (This is in regards to everything business related not aimed at you and your flea pit’s chance of survival).
So, is this a Mulan deal where you have to pay $40 on top of the subscription?EDIT: I just realized my computer could go to sites other than this one, and determined that there won’t be an extra cost.
Also the main difference is that you don’t get to “keep it” since it’ll only be on HBO Max for a month.
Disney was stupid to charge extra for it. Now you can rent it without even having Disney+.
I don’t know that Disney was the stupid one. Anyone who couldn’t wait a few months to rent or watch it on Disney + probably is. Any money that Disney made from the extra charge model is just gravy.
“Wonder Woman (2017) was a hasty rehash of the first Captain America and Thor films, written by four men with a combined fourth-grader’s grasp on history, which skirted by on the novelty of a female superhero, Gal Gadot’s incredible charisma, and adequate direction from Patty Jenkins,” Snudbert Flunderkip, Vice President of Sales at HBO Max, tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “Now that the novelty factor is gone, our Donald Trump-inspired villain is about to feel dated in the worst way, and Black Widow is poised to dominate the summer of 2021, we look forward to safely disappointing a whole world’s worth fans at home, by presenting them this spectacularly okay Christmas Day release.”
skirted by on the novelty of a female superhero
I’d add “David Thewlis and Robin Wright classing up the joint” to that list and call Jenkins’ directing at least a notch above adequate (if nothing else, she’s continuing in what appears to be a tradition of Arrested Development alumni turning out to be really good at big-screen action sequences) but… yeah, I can’t call any of that wrong.
Other then Black Widow dominating 2021. My bet is Disney sees this news and says okay we are doing this and releases Black Widow on New Years
Who thinks we’ll be safe going to movies in the summer?
Me but then I live in Australia.
Okay, but everything else in your country is trying to kill you.
Well, perhaps we’ll start to see more interest in reviving the concept of drive-in movie theaters by that point. That, and perhaps exploration of other forms of outdoors screenings. Of course, winter puts kind of a damper on those plans. But seasonal cinema is better than no cinema.
You’d think so, but in my general area I have seen so many megaplexes shutter and basically zero drive-ins take their place. And we’re talking, like, a bunch of towns with abandoned former drive-ins that could be put back into working order with hardly anything except a push mower and spray paint.There must be some kind of zoning issue around them, or perhaps all of that popcorn butter was stored in giant leaky vats and it turned out to be toxic enough to classify the theaters as brownfields? Either that or property speculation. . . . And it’s frankly stupid times two, since some of these ex-theaters are used as de facto parking lots for semitrailers, and it would be super easy to just slap a big magnetic screen on the side of a semitrailer and project movies onto it even in other normal parking lots. So I feel like the real issue is that we’re all too exhausted and fractured to go beyond ideas like that and actually band together as a community and implement themAlmost as if our want for community is based around resuming habits formed around established commercial spaces and not a real desire for community itself or even to lift half a hand to facsimile those spaces. Habits and patterns and whatnot.
That’s really sad. I live in Florida, and we’re heading into really nice weather. My county is really densely built out so I don’t think we’d have a lot of obvious drive in areas, but I can think of the huge former flea market space would be pretty perfect. And honestly my city has the most planned outdoor waterside parkspace that would also be ideal for doing like blanket style movies. In fact most of the time we do that, and in the before times, we also had city pool movies too. I’d love to go to drive in.
The vaccine(s) will only just be rolling out to the general population next summer, so nope.
A summer, maybe, sometime years into the future.
That raging response you received is telling.
In a wild leap of optimism I just bought tickets to Hamilton in June. I’m not wildly optimistic, there is a COVID cancellation policy. But siiiiiigh….
Odds are “no”. Getting 400 million doses of the vaccine made in 6 months will be hard.
Getting them distributed across the continent will be even harder.
And getting 400 million North Americans voluntarily agree to take them (let alone afford them) will probably be the hardest part.
I’m kinda betting that Disney looks at this, thinks “Wait, we’d be following WB’s lead?” and then asks itself when the last time was that that was a good idea.
They are releasing these movies to generate more subscribers. Soul is already releasing on Christmas, so I think if they are rethinking Black Widow’s release they won’t do it so close in order to have two events.
It’s not a real quote, click on the tweet link.
Uh, I kinda figured that out from the “Snudbert Flunderkip” part…
Sorry, it’s the internet. You can never be sure.
I think I’m the only person that clicked your link… lol.
Look I hate all things DC more than most but I’m going to admit there was more going on there than “the novelty of a female superhero, Gal Gadot’s incredible charisma, and adequate direction from Patty Jenkins.” As superhero movies go it well clears the bar in terms of quality. It’s up there with the “good enough” MCU movies for sure. You can’t say that for any other DC movie except for the latest Batman movies.
I have a bad feeling that Trump as a villain isn’t going to feel dated any time soon…
He felt dated in 1946.
That’s gonna have a ‘too soon’ stink for a while.
You had me until “and Black Widow is poised to dominate the summer of 2021…” and then I realized you were Joe Quesada and your point is null and void.
Was I the only one watching because Chris Pine is gorgeous and Gal Gadot is a stunningly beautiful woman? And the Wonder Woman outfit was perfect on her…Oh man, I am that shallow! *hangs head in shame*
Snudbert Flunderkip 8/10. No really, pretty good.
I might be seeing a third movie in cinemas this year!
If WB can put Wonder Woman 1984 up on HBO Max at no additional cost, then Disney really had no shame charging Disney+ subscribers $30 extra to see Mulan.
They seem to have beat you and WB to the punch on that by announcing Soul coming out free on Disney+ on Xmas.
Oh no… it’s The Interview all over!
Anyone remember the era when HBO would do a “mystery” premier on X-Mas or New Year’s Eve and basically show a hit movie – just once – months and months before it was scheduled for DVD or Cable release? I feel like this was long enough ago that I question wether it really happened. (Early 90’s?)
This sounds like an urban legend
Perhaps Shazaam starring Sinbad.
That collective groan you just heard were all the movie theater company executives. I wonder if this means a WB ban forthcoming. I highly doubt people would rather sit in a theater anytime soon with Covid raging, than getting it on VOD when given the choice. I just hope the movie is good. I’m in the minority that thought the first one was pretty meh.
I mean, between my growing fear that some incel was gonna randomly shoot up a theater, and now infections diseases that many people believe is a hoax, I am more than happy at the prospect of never going to a theater again. I have a big TV and I know how to make popcorn. Also I have a small bladder and now I can pause the movie to go pee.
Oh, Christ, I’d forgotten all about that “Joker” nonsense. I remember having to call ahead before going to see that stupid Brad Pitt space monkey movie just to make sure there weren’t any delays on account of the forewarned “heightened security.”Spoiler alert: The theater was not frisking people in line at the matinee showing of that stupid Brad Pitt space monkey movie, because there was no line for the matinee showing of that stupid Brad Pitt space monkey movie.
I have definitely been a theater where I saw some dude come in the middle of the movie, sit for a bit, and then get up and leave, and I just spent the rest of the movie thinking “Did he take his bag with him?” Most likely it was just some kid sneaking in after another movie, and decided he didn’t like it, and left. But still… identifying all the exits shouldn’t have to be part of the moviegoing experience.
Huh…. I get that movie confused with the double episode of Friends where Ross’s monkey shows up with Jean Claude Van Dame.
Words cannot express how much that movie would have been improved by replacing Brad Pitt with Jean-Claude Van Damme.Jean-Claude Van Damme falls off a space station.
Jean-Claude Van Damme shoots a rabid space monkey in the face.
Jean-Claude Van Damme is captured and interrogated by subterranean space terrorists.
Jean-Claude Van Damme confronts space Marlon Brando at the end of the universe.
There you go, Hollywood, I’ve just solved 90 percent of your problems.
I’m with you. I just got a killer deal on an enormous TV for my remodeled den. The seating is super comfy, I have fun lighting and an excellent popcorn popper, two clean bathrooms that only I use, and a teeny bladder! And basically every streaming service I need.The only time I went to the theater in the last five or more years was because friends wanted to and it was an event or I was just being a good friend. I’ll be happy to watch this with my Dad on Christmas Day because it is unlikely to have any SURPRISE graphic sex!!!!
Hopefully, Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah fur will cover up everything!
This seems a desperation move to get HBOMax subs in the US and then just tossing it out internationally, which seems ridiculous. Theaters are closed in places that aren’t America too, (specifically in my city in Ontario.) Thanks Warner Brothers you stupid asshats. Frankly it’s a moral obligation to pirate it.
So the WB/HBO blinked first huh?! Black Panther gonna be a New Years surprise release then on Disney+?
Black Panther is on Disney+.
What about Blacker Panther?
I meant Black Widow. Had a brain fart
Happens to the best of us my good man…monster…thing!
Unlikely, they’re releasing Soul on Christmas Day. No need to burn 2 movies so quickly.
Right. They also have WandaVision set to premiere in early 2021, which would already generate subscriptions from the MCU target audience. Depending on when Falcon & The Winter Soldier is set to premiere, I’d say we wouldn’t see Black Widow change to Disney + premiere until summer.
I am guessing since End Game finished that chapter of the MCU Disney may not be rushed to get Black Widow going. Black Widow will be the (un?)official intro to the new MCU and then keep the ball rolling with adding to that with all in theater releases for maximum profit.
Agreed, they already pushed Eternals back a full year, which kind of implies they’re going to try for the original spacing (BW in May, Eternals in November) just delayed a year.
It would make sense those movies have momentum and are all interconnected.
I think one of the overlooked, low-key BEST things about superhero movies being released VOD: I can fast-forward the credits for the two credits scenes and don’t have to sit in the theater an extra ten minutes after a three hour movie that played after 25 minutes of ads and trailers.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to see this one at the movies but I think I am now given numbers are going to be way down for box office and whatever support I can give I will however symbolic. As far as we know, cinemas here have been safe for a few months now in Australia (touch wood).
Considering theatres across the globe are still closed, this is actively one of the dumbest things I’ve seen Warner Brothers ever do and I’m still annoyed I have WB DVDs from the early 2000s that aren’t in anamorphic widescreen. Basically a hail mary for them to keep HBOMax afloat in the US.
Caption Contest:
On weekends, Wonder Woman picks up extra money teaching Arab guys how to do the YMCA.
If this pandemic leads to the death of the multiplex and the return of drive-in movies, at least one thing will have gone right.I’m looking forward to another Wonder Woman movie, but I’d have been waiting for it to reach my television anyway, since I freaking hate movie theaters in their current iteration. This is a win for me.
I do love drive-in theaters (and second-run theaters,), but I’ve also seen enough movies in a drive-in setting to know that they were far from ideal, as well: subpar sound/video, insects, rundown/filthy facilities, etc. It’s possible it could come back with some upscale, new-fangled version, but it would take a pretty powerful player to make it work.
“Imagine” that (it’s easy, if you try).
I find it funny that I commented yesterday that the only DC movie I have any interest in is WW1984, and then I see this. Also means I now need to sign up for HBOMax, but I’m gonna wait until the second season of The Mandalorian is done.
They could put out a two-hour video of her drinking a glass of water and I’d watch it.
this is a good idea for a Christmas release! I’ll be watching with me famjam!
Good god, I’m embarrassed to ask this because it makes me sound old and out of touch, but does this mean I can watch it on HBO, like the regular cable HBO on demand as well? The HBO app strategy went to crap for me as a cable subscriber, between HBO now, HBO go, and me having Amazon hardware and not having access to HBO max. I literally don’t know how to consume media anymore.
I’m very happy about this. The 1st Wonderwoman was way better than all DC movies and about 90% of the Marvel Movies. I so badly wanted to see 1984 and no way I was going to the movie theater to see it before a Vaccine.This movie was going to make them over a Billion dollars…. I have HBO Max and love it so this is great news for me.
Three years ago, stressed out from parenting and a layoff, I found myself catching the end credits of Wonder Woman (2017). It was one of the only times I “mentally unclenched” that year, and what a coincidence. My mind was open and ready for anything, and I just happened to flip to whatever cable channel was showing the movie. I caught ONLY the end credits, and was blown away. It was some combination of FX demo reel, modern art video installation, bad acid trip, and rock video. I just had to rent the movie immediately and watch it. And I really, really don’t enjoy superhero movies.TLDR; the end credits of Wonder Woman stand as a bad ass work of art.
It is really shocking how short sighted Warner Brothers is. Same deal how when Tenet came out in the US it didn’t make notable cash without NY/LA, this won’t make any notable cash since the GTA is closed down. I think they expect me to buy a hazmat suit and hike to the Atlantic Bubble. Or, like a certain immortal Sith said, “the dark side of the Force is a path to many abilities some consider to be unnatural” (although warezbb hasn’t been working for months which throws a wrench into that plan, slightly)
https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainmen…TJxE3rJUSvJygcg4JqH0tmaL_aF-6PKsefDTWEZZvpmtw
TORONTO — “Wonder Woman 1984” will make history in the United States when it becomes the first superhero blockbuster to debut simultaneously in theatres and on a streaming platform, but for Canadians, the viewing options won’t be so revolutionary.
A representative for Warner Bros. says the DC Comics adventure will take the more traditional big-screen route here, opening exclusively in markets across Canada where cinemas haven’t been closed by local COVID-19 measures on Dec. 25.
It’s a decision that’s angered many comic book fans who’ve hung their hopes on a Canadian streaming platform stepping in to acquire the rights to “Wonder Woman 1984” at a time when people are being encouraged to stay at home.
…
The U.S. home of the sequel is HBO Max, a streaming platform that shares the same corporate umbrella as Warner Bros., telecommunications giant AT&T…..
HBO Max doesn’t operate as a streaming service outside the U.S., though some of its higher-profile TV shows and made-for-streaming original films are licensed to Bell Media’s Crave platform in Canada.
…
Ellis Jacob, president and CEO of Cineplex, the largest Canadian film exhibitor, acknowledged that by showing “Wonder Woman 1984” his company is making some exceptions in “unique times.”
The theatre operator usually holds distributors to a 90-day policy for the window between a film’s theatrical debut and its premiere at home, but Jacob said he believes Warner Bros. understands the “importance of a theatrical release and the power of the big screen.”
But Cineplex also faces the possibility that a growing number of its theatres will be forced to close in the coming weeks due to the pandemic, many of them in the largest markets.
“Between now and opening day, we will continue our outreach with all levels of government to remind them that the theatrical experience is safe,” Jacob added.
A representative for Crave says while a deal wasn’t struck to bring “Wonder Woman 1984” to the platform during its theatrical run, the film “will stream on Crave following its standard theatrical windows.”