Wonder Woman 1984 is heading into theater exclusivity in third place this weekend.
The grand experiment of Wonder Woman 1984 releasing in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time is drawing to a close. As the film closes out its fifth weekend at the domestic box office, the film will now kick off 30 days exclusively in theaters.
The weekend box office numbers saw Wonder Woman 1984 land in third place with $1.6 million to bring the U.S. total to $37.7 million. Internationally the film has done $110.3 million for a global total of $148 million off of an estimated budget of $200 million.
Analysts have predicted that the Warner Bros. plan to release films day-and-date in theaters and HBO Max may end up costing the studio $1.5 billion in lost ticket sales when all is said and done. At the same time it is estimated that the streaming service needs to add 15 million subscribers to make up the difference.
The bigger question for us is if people will stay subscribed between the films that they want to see. For instance, if all you care about are DC films, The Suicide Squad won't be on HBO Max until Aug. of this year, so it is worth keeping the subscription for nearly seven months? But if you're interested in the likes of Godzilla vs Kong which comes out March 26, will you be willing to keep the account open? (Addendum: It has been brought up I should have mentioned Zack Snyder's Justice League. I was talking specifically about the day-and-date project, which that exists outside of. There's also going to be new episodes of Titans, Doom Patrol, and so on as well.)
With no solid numbers having been released as to how Wonder Woman 1984 performed on HBO Max, it is almost impossible to tell if this was a successful experiment. We'll just have to watch where the total number of HBO Max subscribers goes from here.
The Suicide Squad is due to hit theaters and HBO Max on Aug. 6, 2021.
