The Observer provides an analysis of the success of Wonder Woman 1984, two weeks after its simultaneous release to theatres and on HBO Max streaming. Warner Bros. stirred up much controversy with its day-in-date release strategy, first with WW1984 and then with its entire slate of 2021 features. After 10 days and two weekends, the global box office for WW1984 had risen to $118.5M, with $28.5M of that coming out of the Domestic market.
In normal times, this would be a colossal underperformance but in mid-pandemic times when only 35% of North American theatres were open, this was not so bad. The best measure of success for Warner Media is the impact the film is having on the uptake in subscriptions for HBO Max, and those numbers look somewhat more encouraging.
Screen Engine projects that WW1984 was the most-watched SVOD movie in 2020 during its opening weekend, placing it ahead of Hamilton (7/4) and Soul (12/25) on Disney+. Samba TV projects that 2.2M households watched Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max during its first three days. 1.85M movie tickets were sold for the film at US and Canadian theatres ($16.7M gross box office at an average ticket price of $9). Such is the new dynamics in assessing the success of a movie release.