How Wonder Woman 2’s Release Date Might Affect its Box Office Success?

At this year's San Diego comic-con Warner Bros. and DC have announced the Wonder Woman 2 release date: December 13, 2019. At first glance moving the movie from its summer release date seems as an odd choice, but let’s analyze that choice and see if it’s a good idea.

December did wonders for the Star Wars: The Force Awakens which made more than 2 billion dollars, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, didn’t do so bad either, with a total gross of over one billion dollars. However, Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be the last time Lucasfilms will release a Star Wars movie during December. Lucasfilms which is owned by Disney, decided to move all of their Star Wars movies into the more competitive summer season, and DC jumped at the opportunity to lock down this lucrative slot. Seems like a brilliant idea to take a date that is known for a billion dollars, right? Well, not necessarily.

Star Wars had relatively no competition, but Wonder Woman 2 is going to face some fierce competition courtesy of the house of mouse who owns everything, not just Star Wars. I’m not talking about Captain Marvel, luckily, her movie is coming out on March 8, so we can only be exited that both movies come out at the same year, but they won’t be directly competing.

On November 8, 2019, Disney has saved a slot for an untitled live action fairy tale, and with so many Disney live action fairy tales in development right now, it could be anything. Literally. But, it seems that Aladdin, Dumbo and Lion King are the furthest in development right now, and each one will be fierce competition. But, it’s over a month between this movie and Wonder Woman 2, which gives this movie plenty of time to run out of steam.

Frozen 2 comes out November 27, so there are just about two weeks apart between these two movies. These are both leggie movies, and play as more family movies. Although Wonder Woman 2 can win out this battle as Frozen is more female friendly movie and Wonder Woman is considered to be a more gender natural movie. But, in the end, three scenarios are possible: 1) after two weeks of a lot of win Frozen 2 will start to slow down as Wonder Woman 2 hits the big screen. 2) Frozen 2 can hurt Wonder Woman 2 at the box office or 3) as in the case of Dr. Strange and Fantastic Beasts have shown, there is plenty of cash to go around to two good films that play for a similar audience. Or, both movies will make a lot of money because they won’t be playing for a similar audience at all. As time passed Frozen received a lot of criticism. Unless the sequel address that, the movie could be substantially hurt. it might substantially hurt the movie. While Wonder Wonder 2 has a lot less pressure going in to production, other than making another great movie.

And on December 20 another untitled live action fairy tale comes out. Disney live action fairy tales have been proven to be very successful, and it could significantly slow down Wonder Woman 2’s incomes. Wicked also comes out on the same day, but I am not too worried as adaptation of musicals are very hit or miss, and in this case, I believe it will miss. Also, I don’t believe that Disney will release two live action fairy tales so close to each other and to Frozen 2, even without Wonder Woman 2 in the mix, they will hurt their own success. However, just one live action fairy tale and Frozen 2, can be a big challenge for Wonder Woman 2 to handle.

But, Wonder Woman 2 has a lot going for it. The narrative surrounding this movie is fantastic. I would like to take a moment here and remind you that narratives do not necessarily represent reality. So, narrative wise it’s this is the best movie of the summer, made lots of money, has unbelievable legs, broke lots of records and DC is planning an Oscar campaign for this movie. If it will get an Oscar nomination it will be huge, and it will help the sequel a lot, but I am not betting on it. However, she could get a Golden Globe nomination as Deadpool did last year. All of this will help the sequel be successful. Usually sequels make more money then the original movie and Wonder Woman made $789,643,779 as of 3rd of August. The sequel will beat that easily, it will probably make a billion dollars and be the only solo superhero movie that isn't Iron Man to do so. Also, according to rumors it will be set in cold war Russia, the wintery location will help sell it as a December movie.

Also, I would like to point out that DC has moved movies in the past to avoid terrible competition. It moved Batman v. Superman from its original release date more than once to avoid competition with Captain America: Civil War, so perhaps Wonder Woman 2’s date is not set in stone. Perhaps it is set only to get Patty Jenkins to sign as the director again, as apparently, she is more interested another project. She’s signed with TNT to produce a short mini-series about Black Dahlia with Chris Pine as lead actor, which could cause problems with squealing filming for Wonder Woman 2 with her as a director.

Nothing is set in stone, not even release dates, and Wonder Woman 2 might end up changing directors. Or changing the release date. However, unlike the original Wonder Woman movie, smooth releases are uncharacteristically for a DC movies. It seems that Wonder Woman 2 is already suffering from some DC familiar problems, but I have faith that the sequel will be just as good as the first one, with or without Patty Jenkins, hopefully, with. Two and a half years is eternity in DC production times.

If I were DC I would keep the December release date, until Disney will decide whether they will actually release any movies other than Frozen 2 in those time slots, because as_Wonder Woman_ passed almost every big blockbuster this summer, I have faith, it can defeat Frozen 2.

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