Warner Bros. has announced that it’s pushing Wonder Woman 1984 back until December 25th, the sixth such delay for the superhero sequel.
The move comes after the studio released Christopher Nolan’s anticipated thriller, Tenet, which opened over Labor Day weekend to a “muted” box office take of $20 million, according to Variety.
Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman, was originally slated to hit theaters in December 2019, but was bumped back so as to get out of the way of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The film bounced around to November 2019 before settling in June 2020.
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But as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the shutdown of theaters earlier this spring, Warner Bros. opted to bump the film to August 14th, 2020. As the pandemic has persisted through the summer, the studio moved it to October 2nd, along with a number of other projects on its slate. Now, with the virus still a major threat in the country, the studio has moved it out of the fall and into the winter season, a full year since it was initially supposed to come out.
The film moving out of its fall date could be a blow to theaters, which have begun to open at reduced capacities: with no major blockbusters, they’ll have a harder time attracting audiences into theaters. As Variety notes, the next major superhero film is Marvel’s Black Widow, which is set to hit theaters on November 6th after delays of its own.
Wonder Woman’s release date also brings up a question about Warner Bros. other big science fiction blockbuster, Dune. A report from Deadline last week revealed that the studio was speaking with distributors, who widely expected at the time that both Wonder Woman 1984 and Dune would have their release dates bumped back. With its new release date, Wonder Woman is set to hit just days after Dune is slated debut in theaters. Dune just released its first trailer last week, and while the trailer’s description indicated that it’s still on track for a December 18th release, the trailer itself doesn’t have a date in it.
For those keeping track, Wonder Woman 1984 is now slated to hit theaters on December 25th, 2020.
