Warner Bros. Set New Release Date For Wonder Woman
We've been waiting to see just how WarnerBros. would react to Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’s box officeperformance. Sure it made a ton of cash but that 69% drop between the first and
second weekend has execs and even those who have no vested interest in B.O
performances talking.
So with the DC Cinematic Universe wounded,if not, hobbled entirely, plans are now in motion to make changes to thecurrent slate of films.
Warner Bros. has announced a slew of
changes to their schedule, including new release dates for Wonder Woman, Jungle
Book: Origins, and two untitled DC superhero movies.
Firstly, the important news is that this
seems to be a vote of confidence in Wonder Woman, after Gal Gadot lassoed
moviegoers with her as yet, fully realised potential.
Patty Jenkins’ movie, which finds Gal
Gadot’s Amazon warrior going on an adventure in Europe during World War I, was
originally set to bow on June 23, 2017. Now, it will open on June 2, 2017.
Ifyou look at the schedule, this is a good thing. The previous release date putWonder Woman in direct competition with Transformers 5 – now, the only real
competition is on June 2 is Bad Boys 3, which is not so much a movie at this
point, more a promise; being as it has no script and is unlikely to make that release
date at this point.
Warner’s also announced that two untitledDC films will open on October 5, 2018, and November 1, 2019, what those movies
maybe is anyone’s guess. But if we were hard-pressed into making said guess, we’d say one would be Ben Affleck’s solo Batman movie.
The other is perhaps a sequel to Suicide
Squad but even that feels less assured now after it was revealed that it was
to undergo million dollar reshoots in order to make the movie more fun after
every one went nuts for the admittedly fun looking trailer.
With a standalone Flash movie due on 16
March 2018, Aquaman set to splashdown on 27 July 2018 and a solo Cyborg coming in
3 April 2020, its seems more than likely that at least one of these movies will
be a sequel – unless Warner Bros have something else up their sleeves between
now and 2018.
One of the casualties of the changes wrought
by Batman and Superman is Jungle Book: Origins, which has been pushed from
October 6, 2017 to October 19, 2018.
This isn’t the first time this film has
been pushed back an entire year.
About a year and a half ago, director AndySerkis’ motion capture adaption of Rudyard Kipling’s beloved stories wasdelayed from 2016 to 2017.
Serkis himself commented this latest
change:
“I’ve got to say that personally I’m
absolutely thrilled that Warner Brothers have changed the delivery date of our
movie. The ambition for this project is huge. What we are attempting is an
unprecedented level of psychological and emotional nuance in morphing the
phenomenal performances of our cast into the facial expressions of our
animals.”
However, perhaps the biggest reason for thechange is the Disney are just about to release their own Jungle Book movie, one
which has already garnered ecstatic early reviews and strong buzz – you can
understand why they’d want to keep their distance from what could be a mammoth hit
for the House of Mouse.