Wonder Woman 1984 Will Go Direct To Streaming
You haven’t heard anything about Wonder Woman 1984 being delayed for one very good reason: Warner Bros. is planning to stream it.
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Warner Bros and most of Hollywood’s other major studios just announced that pretty much every big blockbuster movie left with a 2020 release date has now been delayed. The only notable exception to this massive movement of movie release dates is Wonder Woman 1984. There’s been no official announcement about any change in that movie’s release, even though the studio in charge of it, Warner Bros., announced they’re delaying everything else they had on the schedule.
You haven’t heard anything about Wonder Woman 1984 being delayed for one very good reason: Warner Bros. is planning to stream it.
There have been rumors for months now that WB has specifically pondered releasing Wonder Woman 1984 direct to streaming platforms and now according to my source it’s going to happen. This is a source I’ve known for a long time and while they haven’t given me a scoop recently, they’ve been straight up with me in the past. Still, I only have one source on this so as always any time any news item only has one source, take it with a grain of salt.
My source tells me that Warner Bros. is sticking with Wonder Woman 1984’s current December 25, 2020 release date because they feel they no longer have any choice but to start releasing their movies on streaming.
The writing is on the wall for the movie theater business. It’s done. Regal Theaters, the nation’s second biggest chain, has closed all their locations and it’s not clear if they’ll ever reopen. AMC, the nation’s largest theater chain, has announced they will shut down permanently in six months if something doesn’t change before then. With nearly ever big Hollywood release (except Wonder Woman 1984) now delayed into the far future, it seems clear that nothing will change before AMC’s six-month deadline.
The situation we’re in here is that delaying movies won’t help Hollywood because by the time they’re ready to show them, there won’t be any movie theaters left to show them in.
My source tells me that WB now feels streaming is inevitable and they don’t want to be the last studio to release a big blockbuster on streaming, they want to be the first. And by releasing Wonder Woman 1984 on streaming, they will be.
The plan is to release Wonder Woman 1984 simultaneously in movie theaters and on streaming, if there are any movie theaters open on Christmas to release it in. But they expect their largest audience will be on streaming platforms, where they’ll charge a premium rate to view the biggest direct to streaming movie ever released.
The only obstacle here is the movie theaters themselves, who are going insane over the idea that WB might stream Wonder Woman 1984. They know this will be the last nail in their coffin and they’re threatening and doing everything they can to prevent Warner Bros from making this move. Ultimately though, their threats are empty and toothless. At this point it’s unlikely WB will cave and listen to them, though if things change and Wonder Woman 1984 does get delayed, an assault by movie theater owners associations will be why it happens.
Buckle up. The movie industry is about to change and there’s no going back. Like it or not, movie theaters are dead. Wonder Woman 1984 will be the first big blockbuster released on streaming and there is no going back ya’ll.
