‘Wonder Woman 1984’ may move away from the Christmas release date;...

Facts are facts, whether former Vice President Joe Biden takes over the US presidency or President Donald Trump continues: Cinemas in New York City and Los Angeles remain closed, and worse, Western Europe – that is, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and a curfew in Spain – is largely closed as these countries topped 16% of the $ 409.3 million box office of the first picture in 2017 overseas.

I heard there is a meeting going on with Studio Brass who will decide what will happen next. Despite the good intentions of Warner Bros. executives to adhere to December 25th, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Ann Sarnoff said at a Variety Power of Women Conversations last week, “We have a little time, to find out ”in relation to a WW84 Change of publication date.

In fact the studio doesn’t.

If Warners doesn’t want to get lost P&A money, it’ll have to move WW84 now according to multiple industry sources. Typically, tentpole film campaigns start six weeks before their opening date. That would set WW84 Spots starting the week before Thanksgiving. And if the Patty Jenkins-directed Gal Gadot film is to stick to its Christmas Day release date, it definitely needs to be advertised during Thanksgiving, when everyone at home is watching football (and there might be some who dare to go to the theaters to see Universal / DreamWorks Animations The Croods: A New Age which plays on a shortened cinema window just in time for a PVOD broadcast until Christmas).

It’s a tough decision, and a huge responsibility, for Warners to carry on behalf of the industry, much like the valor they wielded in the release of Christopher Nolan’s principle At a time when the pandemic wasn’t over and the box office capitals of New York and Los Angeles were still closed, it resulted in an 11-day domestic opening of $ 20.2 million, with the current domestic BO to date of 53, Was $ 8 million (global revenue was better at $ 347.1 million). The poor domestic results forced other large studios to cut all of their fall and vacation sticks off the schedule.

If Wonder Woman 1984 flees before Christmas, we might continue to expect Disney to pull its 20th Century Studios marquee functions Free guy with Ryan Reynolds and Tod am Nil, Gadot has a double duty to do that. The exhibition is also looking forward to these films. But with WW84With the rescheduling to 2021, the cinema framework for the end of the year would suddenly go on vacation, which the exhibition had in mind in order to extend its financial catwalks. This type of situation could lead to major racetracks like AMC going bankrupt or the exhibition continuing to close (UK second largest chain Cineworld is closed, and its US counterpart Regal is only open in select locations in California and New York).

Until there is a complete sense of virus clearing, studios and distributors choose to book low budget movies on the market, titles that they can target on specific demos, e.g. B. Open Roads Honest thief with men or the PG-13 horror film from Focus Features come play last weekend with teenagers and women under 25. But when smaller distributors refill WW84, Free Guy and Tod am Nil What use is that for an exhibition with a smaller, dull tariff? These films have recently opened in the low single digits at the home box office over the weekend.

On the other hand, we hear that it is also possible that the university will keep its historical drama of Tom Hanks News from all over the world Given the PVOD contract with AMC and Screen Gems’ Monster hunter could stick to its December 30th domestic date as the Chinese and Asian markets are the big game of this image.

Regardless, we heard from exhibition sources on Monday that Warner Bros. was flirting with the idea of ​​a shortened home theater window for WW84 from about 17-21 days before putting on PVOD. Studio insiders responded that there was no such plan in the works for their valuable DC sequel, the first Wonder woman grossing $ 821.8 million at the global box office.

So given all the changes to the release date for WW84, How much money is it losing? Industry sources don’t say much as the film will be profitable should it keep its theatrical release and normal market debut going forward. The P&A expenses of the image only increase for money already spent. The TV spot media are buying that WW84 booked in the near future, can easily be postponed unless some of them can’t (like the spots purchased during a pre-purchase or NFL purchase). Funding sources estimate P&A and accrued interest costs that have already been spent on WW84 to stand $ 20 million. Interest costs on the film rose during filming, which began in June 2018, and if you count by the end of that year, those numbers will be anywhere from $ 8 million to $ 9 million per funding source.

Add $ 6.4 million in TV spot ads that have already aired per iSpot (none since Aug. 25, according to the agency) and two online trailer drops (which are never organic Eyeball views, all studios pay for the View Boost), which is expected to be in the seven-figure range. I hear on YouTube that paid views often cost $ 250,000 per 10 million views. RelishMix tells us that during daylight streaming times on YouTube, studios often record 1 million views per hour. On Warner Bros. US YouTube channels only, both WW84 Followers have reached 56 million views.

Affiliate penalties are harder to consider as they are carried out from advertiser to advertiser. I was told that at any studio, when goods or materials have been delivered to the store and the release dates have changed, the studio is often charged for it. We live in times of force majeure, however, and some promo partners are giving out studios. What happened on Wonder Woman 1984 is that there have already been promotions, i.e. a Doritos pocket campaign over the summer (tied to the image’s publication date on June 5th), a blood donation from the Red Cross, which is coordinated with the then changed opening date of the image on October 2nd a Lego toy set and bags with sweets from SweeTarts Golden Ropes Tropical Punch. Warners will eat this up as a pre-consciousness for the film. In such cases, however, the advertiser cannot be expected to start advertising again on the new release date of the image, as they have other obligations to meet with other studios and films.

So if WW84 Shifts, where would it go? A logical place would be the first weekend in June. That’s the same weekend that the first film was released in 2017, with an opening of $ 103.2 million. Currently, Warners New Lines The incantation: The devil made me do it on June 4th and the earlier lucrative genre period of the weekend after Labor Day September 10-12, reserved for an unnamed New Line horror feature. That would make sense Summoning 3 then would float to autumn.