Wonder Woman 1984 was supposed to come out 35 years after its title date, but now it’ll debut 36 years later. Warner Bros. has announced that it’s pushed back the film’s release a full seven months to June 5th, 2020.
The shift comes with a parallel move as the studio has removed The Six Billion Dollar Man, a movie adaptation of The Six Million Dollar Man set to star Mark Wahlberg as Steven Austin, from its schedule. That freed up WW84, originally set for November 1st, 2019, to reclaim summer tentpole status like the original Wonder Woman.
It’s also possible that WB/DC’s decision was impacted by Disney/Marvel’s recent removal of an untitled film scheduled for July 31st, 2020 (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, anyone?) from its own schedule. WW84 will now open a month after a different, as-yet-unannounced Marvel movie (May 1st, 2020), but it won’t have another major superhero production in its path for the rest of summer. The move also keeps WW84 from opening just weeks after Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s The Joker arrives on October 4th, 2019.
In a statement, WB president of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein said, “We had tremendous success releasing the first Wonder Woman film during the summer so when we saw an opportunity to take advantage of the changing competitive landscape, we did. This move lands the film exactly where it belongs.”
Gadot herself tweeted the news to her fans, who will surely sulk at having to wait another half-a-year to see the sequel to the 2017 smash. Still, you can’t fault the studio for making what’s a sound distribution decision from their perspective.