Gadot, director anxious
Entertainment worlds waits as ‘WW84’ opens in theaters and streaming
Wonder Woman is breaking new ground yet again.
Three years after the DC Comics icon became the first female superhero to headline a contemporary blockbuster, a much anticipated sequel reunites breakout star Gal Gadot with powerhouse director Patty Jenkins. Originally scheduled for release in June, “Wonder Woman 1984” was seen as one of summer’s surefire hits.
Expectations were so high that industry observers forecast it would gross $1 billion worldwide, besting the $800-million-plus global gross of the original. And it would have played a central role in what looked like a watershed year for female-directed tentpole movies. (Marvel had “Black Widow” scheduled for May, followed by “The Eternals” in November. Disney’s “Mulan” would have opened in March.)
Instead, in a sign of how swiftly the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the industry upside down, “Wonder Woman 1984” will become the first tent-pole title to premiere in theaters and at home simultaneously when it hits the stream
ing platform HBO Max on Christmas Day in the U.S.
That fact, and the subsequent announcement from the film’s studio, Warner Bros., that its entire 2021 slate of films would premiere the same way, has drummed up significant controversy. Some call it a betrayal of the exhibition industry, which has been hard hit by coronavirus shutdowns. Others label it a myopic move that shortchanges the talent involved in the projects in an effort to turbocharge the anemic launch of Netflix and Disney+ competitor HBO Max.
But despite all the industry drama, nothing about what audiences will see in “Wonder Woman 1984,” which wrapped production in 2018, is any different than they would have seen this summer. For Gadot, who is in the midst of a flurry of press to promote the
release, the important thing is not where audiences will catch up with Wonder Woman, but the fact that the film is coming out at all.
“Before the pandemic, I would’ve flipped out and had a tantrum and fought super hard” for a traditional theatrical release, she says. “But in pandemic times, you just don’t know. I hope that, once the pandemic is over, all these wonderful big movies with great filmmakers and stars will go to theaters.”
Whether viewers are watching at home, at a drive-in or socially distanced at a theater, seeing Diana Prince back on track is sure to provide welcome escapism after a brutal year. “Wonder Woman 1984” reunites the heroine with her long-lost love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), mysteriously resurrected more than 70 years after his
death. They face new villains Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and the Cheetah (Kristen Wiig), and take on a crisis that threatens to plunge the entire world into chaos.
Or maybe it’s not so escapist after all.
“It’s funny because we could’ve never anticipated when we shot the movie back in 2018 that it was going to be so relevant to now,” says Jenkins. “Of course, we made the movie to be seen on the big screen — we shot on film for IMAX and had Hans Zimmer scoring the entire film. Of course, this movie should be in theaters, and it will be. But the fact that it’s going to be on HBO Max domestically just means that more people are going to be able to watch it in America. And nowadays, I’m really in a place where I just want people to see what we did.”