Dubbing 'Wonder Woman 1984' A Success, Warner Bros Hastens Development Of Sequel

AT&T Inc’s (NYSE: T) motion pictures subsidiary Warner Bros. on Sunday announced that it plans to speed up the development of the next installment of the Wonder Woman franchise.

The second superhero flick in the line, "Wonder Woman 1984 — " starring Gal Gadot — was released internationally on Dec. 16 and debuted a week later during Christmas in the U.S.

What Happened: Attributing a positive response to the movie in its opening weekend, Warner Bros. Chairman Toby Emmerich said, “we are excited to be able to continue her story with our real life Wonder Women – Gal and Patty – who will return to conclude the long-planned theatrical trilogy.”

The entertainment company reports that HBO Max’s viewing hours on the day of the release were close to three times higher compared to the user engagement on a typical day in November. Since only 39% of theatres across the U.S. are functional due to COVID-19 — that too at a limited capacity, Wonder Woman 1984 received about 10,000 rental bookings from private watch parties and large format screens.

Andy Forssell, the executive vice president and general manager of WarnerMedia Direct-to-Consumer, said that the movie, “broke records and exceeded our expectations across all of our key viewing and subscriber metrics in its first 24 hours on the service.” Forssell expects the momentum to continue beyond this weekend.

Why Does It Matter: WarnerMedia claimed that Wonder Woman 1984 raked in $16.7 million in its opening weekend in North America — besting box office projections for the highest post-pandemic opening week collections.

Rated as B+ by CinemaScore, Wonder Woman 1984, over this weekend generated around $36.1 million from 42 markets worldwide — including collections in the U.S. and Canada. Till now, the second installment has booked a cumulative collection worldwide of around $85 million.

"Wonder Woman," the first installment of the series, had grossed about $412.8 million in the U.S. and Canada and $822.3 million internationally.

Price Action: T Stock closed Thursday at $28.69, 0.21% lower.

Photo: Courtesy of WarnerMedia