WW84 Lands On HBOMax?!

Wow.

2020 has brought it's share of media shockers, most of which have surrounded cancellations and films seeing multiple release date changes. For the better part of a decade, the superhero movie genre has been a consistent dominator at the Box Office, with such movies having earned their way to 10 of the Top 30 spots of the All-Time Box Office, including Avengers: Endgame's spot at #1. The MCU hasn't seen a release since July 2019 (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and the DCEU had one release in early 2020 (Birds of Prey). Having been used to at least 3-4 major superhero blockbusters each year, this year has decimated the status quo, offering only what I could describe as more Indie-like movies in scale: Birds of Prey, Bloodspot, and The New Mutants.

On a larger scale, 2020 resulted in multiple delays to the releases of:

1. Black Widow

2. Morbius

3. Venom: Let There Be Carnage

4. Wonder Woman 1984 (WW84)

5. The Eternals

All the movies noted above have landed on 2021 release dates, except for WW84, which had its release date moved twice, lastly committing to a Christmas Day theatrical release. With recent reports of COVID-19 cases spiking again in multiple countries, Cinemark/Regal theaters made the decision to close their doors again and AMC is likely holding on by a thread. The uncertainty of movie-going in 2021 certainly still appears in jeopardy, let alone the end of 2020 seemingly like an absolute no-go. With Warner Bros. looking at a severely limited Box Office potential with a 2020 release, the past month or so has been circulating with questions of how WW84 could be handled. There were seemingly 3 options:

1. Change Nothing: Theatrical Release on Dec 25, 2020

2. Shift the Release Date for the 3rd time to sometime 2021

3. Throw away Box Office hopes and drop the movie on HBOMax

All of which come with a fair amount of risk and there is seemingly no way to expect a Box Office return this year or next year to earn enough to warrant it's $200 million budget. So what does WB decide? The one thing I thought was impossible: WW84 will release BOTH in theaters and on HBOMax on Christmas. Again, wow. You want to talk about a service to the fans. Financially, the smartest thing to do would have been to shift the movie to a more profitable release window in 2021. The problem in that is there is no way to predict that there WILL be any profitable theatrical windows next year. So WB instead decides to shift building its profits through HBOMax subscriptions. Do I think they will see enough return to warrant the decision? No. Not even close. However, they will not only avoid any fan backlash from another pushed release date, but also gain praise for giving the fans the first true blockbuster superhero film since July of last year. Kudos.