Wonder Woman 1984 will arrive on HBO Max on Christmas Day

It’s happening – Warner Brothers announced that the highly anticipated sequel Wonder Woman 1984 will arrive on HBO Max the day it opens in theaters.

Hot on the heels of reports that Warner Brothers was mulling whether to further delay the theatrical release of Wonder Woman 1984, the news broke. The highly anticipated sequel will keep its current December 25 release date in the U.S. – but it’ll also be available to stream on HBO Max the same day.

This is, from virtually every angle, a huge deal. Though several films have been released on a variety of streaming and video-on-demand platforms this summer, ranging from Mulan to Bill and Ted Face the Music. But Wonder Woman 1984 will clearly be the biggest title thus far attempting to navigate the perils of an unconventional premiere in unconventional times.

The film will be available to stream for one month and will premiere in international markets – where HBO Max is not available – one week earlier, on December 16.

The film was initially slated for a June release, before being pushed back to August, then October and, then, Christmas. With most major studios seemingly having written 2020 off as a lost cause for major releases, the question of what to do with this movie was a lingering issue with the time getting ever shorter.

Director Patty Jenkins – who repeatedly said her preference for the film to release in theaters – issued a statement via Twitter, encouraging fans to see Wonder Woman 1984 in person where it is safe to do so, but tune in via HBO Max where it is not.

Given that other big tentpole productions such as Dune and The Batman, not to mention the next installment in the James Bond franchise have all moved their release dates well into next year, it’s an interesting decision that it is WW84 that has seen its release strategy shifted to streaming.

On the one hand, the coronavirus is still raging around the world and we have no idea when it will be safe for everyone to see a movie like this in theaters together again. Despite the fact that it will get a “theatrical release” next month – no one is going to theaters now, and probably shouldn’t for the foreseeable. There’s every reason to make fans happy by allowing them the chance to watch this from the comfort and safety of home. (Bonus: HBO Max isn’t even charging extra for it, as Disney+ did with their Mulan release.)

The downside of all this though is that Diana Prince’s movie – the first-ever female solo superhero film sequel – deserves a chance to be seen on the big screen with full houses of cheering fans across the country. (Remember that feeling we all got when we watched the No Man’s Land scene in a theater for the first time?) It deserves to crush it at the box office the way we all know it likely would.

There’s also something vaguely uncomfortable about the fact that it’s female-centered and targeted films like Wonder Woman, Mulan. and Pixar’s forthcoming Soul that are getting pushed to streaming releases, while things like Bond and even the next Fast and the Furious film get held for a nebulous future date we don’t even know yet. I mean, I get that we’re all in an impossible position here, but….still.

At the end of the day, though, I’m sure the film will be amazing, and that’s what really matters. And there are certainly worse Christmas presents than getting a new Wonder Woman movie under the tree.

How do you feel about the decision to release Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max? Are you planning to stream it – or would you rather they’d held it for a proper theater run?