Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman 1984 Is The Last Movie To Abandon 2020
Gal Gadot is the last star standing with Wonder Woman 1984 as the only major 2020 release left.
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Gal Gadot might end up being the only star headlining a major motion picture in 2020. As of now, Wonder Woman 1984 is the only remaining major blockbuster movie planned to release before the year is out. However, according to one person, it could be moving to a new date next year.
Grace Randolph has said that she believes Wonder Woman 1984 will vacate its current release date of December 25 and will move to June 2021. While it is extremely likely at this point that the Gal Gadot film will not stick to its Christmas Day date, it is important to remember that Grace Randolph is not the most reliable source of entertainment news information. So, while she may have made a pretty reasonable deduction, it’s doubtful that this is something to take as hard facts.
Still, it is almost certain that Wonder Woman 1984 will not release this year. After the announcement that Disney pulled its few remaining films out of December, the Gal Gadot film is the only significant release left on the schedule. And with movie theaters looking more barren than ever, Warner Bros. has to be considering pulling the film once again and figuring out the best distribution option available.
However, there is another alternative that Warner Bros. could consider. If the Gal Gadot tentpole film keeps its theatrical release date, there is the option of a simultaneous release on premium video-on-demand. It would be a major experiment to see just how many consumers would be willing to pay for the movie at home and to see how many consumers would still be willing to attend a theatrical screening. Giving audiences the choice would be a revolutionary release strategy for a blockbuster film, and it could end up changing the distribution model forever.
However, Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins seems pretty opposed to the idea that the movie would not have a traditional theatrical release. If that stance remains, then it is going to come down to the decision of whether to move the Gal Gadot superhero film yet again or if Warner Bros. makes the same call they did with Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and release the movie in theaters regardless of the current climate. Either option comes with significant risk.
At this point, one has to wonder if all the delays have hurt anticipation for some of these major movies. Are audiences still interested in seeing Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman after her film has been kicked around so many times? Or has the fatigue of all these schedule changes finally caused potential audiences to reach their burnout point? Or is the delay only going to intensify the desire to see the movie? It would be great if we had some analytical data on these questions.
As of this writing, Wonder Woman 1984 is still slated to open in theaters on Christmas Day. Exactly what the theatrical exhibition landscape will even look like then remains a mystery, but it certainly seems like it will be a bleak future. At this point, we have to wonder how much keeping these films off streaming platforms and video-on-demand services is worth the cost of these continuous delays.
