It is reported by several sources that Warner Bros. wanted to give Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” more time to shine thus resulting in the delay of DC tentpole Wonder Woman.
Patty Jenkins’s film starring Gal Gadot now is scheduled to be released on Christmas day, i.e. December the 25th 2020 with Denis Villeneuve’s Dune still on the hinges of December the 18th release date but it is no brainer that sci-fi film will be delayed to 2021. The delay had been predicted by many box office pundits as Christopher Nolan high-budgeted film failed to garner expected numbers at the domestic box office. The stigma surrounding the pandemic has been given the reason for the slow start of Tenet so Warner Bros. has decided to provide the film with more breather so that it can pull out a good number.
The exact number that Tenet has managed up until now is up for debate with Warner Bros. insisting that it is $20.2 million, but many feel including the ever-reliable IndieWire that it is less than that and is somewhere around $10 million.
The film-like Tenet needed a standard release in normal circumstances to achieve the success that Christopher Nolan hoped it would get, not the staggered release it managed amidst a Pandemic. However, Warner Bros. is still hopeful that numbers will go up as the cases around the world start to come down. The delay is helpful for both Tenet and Wonder Woman as the DC tentpole also requires favorable atmosphere for its release and Warner Bros. is hopeful that shifting the movie from October to December will ensure higher box office numbers.
Choosing December is also a smart move as the movie will bypass several other tentpoles scheduled to be released in November such as “Marvel’s Black Widow,” Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film “No Time to Die,” and Daveed Diggs and Jamie Foxx’ starrer “Soul.”
December release is definitely not an alien concept for Warner Bros. as it managed a humongous success with 2018 film Aquaman making it the highest-grossing DC Extended Universe film ever and the third DC film ever to garner over 1 billion at the box office (after The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises).
Patty Jenkins’ film has undergone an unbelievable number of delays even more so than “Tenet.” It was scheduled to be released on December the 13th 2019 but to avoid competition with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the movie release was preponed to November 2019 before it ultimately made its way to June the 5th 2020 to capture that same seasonal magic that it did in 2017. The pandemic halted the release date again, and the movie had to be shifted to August the 14th, but even on that day, the release of the film was not feasible. It was moved to October the 2nd release date a month behind its Marvel counterpart Black Widow.
The mediocre performance of Tenet must have compelled Warner Bros. to take this decision because, in 2017, Warner Bros. relied heavily on domestic box grossing nearly 50% of its total global gross revenue in the United States.
Both “Dune” and “Wonder Woman 1984” are budgeted around $200 million so releasing them on streaming services is out of the question as it was the case with Tenet who was budgeted around a whopping $225 million. “Dune” was smartly placed in the December slot expecting it to perform in a similar way as did the other sci-fi tentpoles like “Avatar” and “Star Wars” which had blown away the box office during their time in the Christmas seasons.
But now it is looking more likely that “Dune” will be pushed to 2021 and it will be interesting to see whether they remain firm in their decision to release it in the Christmas season (i.e. December 2021) or try to accommodate it early in the year perhaps in April or July.
Source-Wonder Woman Gets Delayed
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