Today in “But we might not live that long!” news, Wonder Woman 1984 has been kicked back seven months, from November 1, 2019 to June 5, 2020. The shuffle comes as Warner Brothers dropped Mark Wahlberg’s Six Billion Dollar Man from their slate (that beleaguered film was acquired last year in the Weinstein fire sale and has been stuck in development hell for like twenty years). This is the second move for Wonder Woman 1984, as it had previously backed up a few weeks to get out of the Star Wars: Episode IX corridor in December.
I am SUPER excited for Wonder Woman 1984, but I don’t hate this move for several reasons. First and foremost, summer 2017 was good to Wonder Woman, so it feels right that the sequel should also be a summer movie. Also, by making this a summer release, Warners is pretty much declaring Diana as the centerpiece of their new, gently rebooted, no-please-don’t-notice-we’re-just-quietly-erasing-the-Snyder-years DC Extended Universe. With blockbusters coming out year-round the summer movie season doesn’t mean what it used to, but there is still something about those big summer movies, and it would be a GREAT narrative if Wonder Woman storms summer 2020. Especially as that will be an election year in the US, and the narrative practically writes itself.
Also, this puts Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel squarely in their own corners. There is zero reason to compare them, but you KNOW some asshole would write a “who won” summary of 2019, implying there can be only one titular superheroine in the market. Never mind that there are six live-action superhero movies this year, all fronted by dudes, and no one ever does that to them. But the Wonder Woman/Captain Marvel comparisons are inevitable, so anything that forces some space is good. I don’t think Warners thought about that for a second—more likely they were motivated by their own Joker mark Joaquin movie coming out just a couple weeks before—but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Moving Wonder Woman 1984 to 2020 means waiting SO LONG, but at least everyone gets their corner to themselves. (Well, Marvel is still stepping on their own toes with the short runway between Captain Marvel and Avengers 4, but that’s their problem.) And I really am looking forward to the 2020 Wonder Woman memes, especially if, you know, sanity reasserts itself.
