by Conan Simmons – December 28, 2020 – 6:03 am
The highly anticipated Christmas weekend has come to a close with weekend box office up 293% over last weekend. As expected ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ takes the top spot with the Tom Hanks western, ‘News of the World’ taking a modest second. The Carey Mulligan black comedy ‘Promising Young Woman’ rounds out the top five, the only film in the top five to make less than $1 million over the weekend.
The day-and-date release of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ came with a considerable amount of complaints over the quality of the streaming from picture frames dropping out to pauses for reloading. Many who did manage to stream on the service did so by finding workarounds to the problematic sign in process. As for the movie itself it is receiving mostly negative reviews. As with any movie it does have its fans and even amongst those giving it good reviews the most common statement is the sequel is cheesier than the first. Having a budget of around $200 million, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ only took in $16 million in the U.S. and approximately $20 million more overseas.
It was never going to be the blockbuster it was meant to be in normal times due to the ongoing global pandemic that is causing theaters around the world to remain closed. Warner Bros. did what it could with releasing it now, regardless of reviews it is much needed entertainment for the time being. Warner Bros. is touting it as a great success and have already made the announcement that Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins will reteam for a third Wonder Woman movie.
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ may be able to claim success due to the current circumstances but its overall box office numbers, combined with mixed reviews, makes it a laggard behind the Labor Day release of ‘Tenet’ which opened to $20 million in the U.S. with nearly another $180 million from overseas. ‘Tenet’ was not a day-and-date release to streaming and was able to maintain the top spot in U.S. theaters for five weeks. As there is a significant lack of anticipated releases for the next month ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ may be able to hold the top spot, though it’s not guaranteed.
Warner Bros. has already announced that their entire slate of releases for 2021 will be day-and-date streaming on HBO Max. Seeing that ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is barely making a quarter of its budget back so far it will be remarkable if the movie ever sees a profit, highly unlikely given the reviews. If Warner Bros. sticks to their day-and-date plan for all their movies next year the studio will lose an obscene amount of money as it faces increased competition from other studios that commit more to theaters, the powerhouse of Marvel movies being the preeminent threat. It should be noted that Disney has not indicated that any Marvel movie will get a day-and-date release, a sign of good hope for theaters that make it through the next few months of the pandemic.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (December 25-27, 2020 CHRISTMAS DAY WEEKEND)
- ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ – $16.7 million – fantasy (debut)
- ‘News of the World’ – $2.4 million – western (debut)
- ‘The Croods: A New Age’ – $1.7 million – animation (dropping $300k, 15% decline)
- ‘Monster Hunter’ – $1.1 million – fantasy (dropping $1.1 million, 50% decline)
- ‘Promising Young Woman’ – $680k – comedy (debut)
Total for the weekend is $22.58 million, a gain of $16.83 million, or a 293% increase over last weekends take of $5.75 million.