2019 is a big year for comic book movies, with Captain Marvel, Shazam!, Avengers Endgame, Dark Phoenix, Spider-Man: Far from Home, and Joker. 2020 is… also a big year for comic book movies, because every year from now until the end of the world (2024) will be filled with movies based on comic book characters. There’s no mega-event like Endgame next year, but we do get Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), two still-unknown Marvel productions, Morbius, and the much-anticipated Wonder Woman 1984. The Patty Jenkins-directed sequel to Wonder Woman, which made $821 million at the box office, was supposed to come out on December 13, 2019, then it was pushed up to November 1 (away from Star Wars: Episode IX) before settling into the 2020 release date. Why the constant movement?
“We always wanted the date that we are on right now,” WW84 producer Charles Roven told Collider. “The studio felt that until their slate for the year before came together… that they needed to have a big what I call aircraft carrier, a ‘tentpole,’ in [2019]. We had a very rushed pre-production because Patty also did [I Am the Night] and we had a very rushed post-production schedule in order to make the date that we were on, which was November 1, 2019.”
He continued, “We were doing it because the studio said they really needed it, and then at a certain point they came to us and they said, ‘You guys are right. Let’s go back to the month that you guys released Wonder Woman 1 in, and take the extra time.’” It’s not like Warner Bros. will be struggling in 2019 without WW1984, either: the studio still has Godzilla: King of the Monsters, It: Chapter 2, Joker, and future Best Picture winner, Detective Pikachu. The wait for Wonder Woman is a long one (Charlie’s Angels took the 2019 release date), but it will be worth it to see Gal Gadot and Chris Pine getting their Breakfast Club on.
(Via Collider)