Wonder Woman 1984 is the latest in a long line of superhero films that you either really liked…or you really didn’t. But that’s not what we’re going to talk about right now. Rather, the big question around the movie that released on Christmas Day was how well it was going to do viewership-wise. At first, it was dubbed a major hit, then, Nielsen reported that the Disney+ exclusive Soul did a lot better in terms of views. But now…
…after a challenge by Warner Bros, The Hollywood Reporter is confirming that Wonder Woman 1984 had the bigger viewership.
Nielsen found HBO Max users spent 2.25 billion minutes watching Wonder Woman 1984 in its first week, which is nearly 15 million complete plays of the 151-minute film. That’s 580 million more minutes than Nielsen previously reported for Pixar’s Soul on Disney+ (1.67 billion minutes), making it the #1 streaming title for Dec. 21-27, 2020. Wonder Woman 1984 also earned the third-highest weekly total for any title since Nielsen started to report weekly streaming numbers in August 2020.
Furthermore, the numbers state it was the most-streamed movie of ANY streaming service in 2020. And yeah, that includes things like Hamilton on Disney+.
The other big success that this brings is that HBO Max now has over 37 million subscribers. Which is where Warner Bros expected to be…in two year time. Proving that their strategy of doing movies in theaters and same-day premieres on HBO Max is proving successful right out the gate. And with the state of theaters not looking any better, HBO Max might be a go-to destination for moviegoers this year.
Now yes, because of the theaters not being open the box office gross of Wonder Woman 1984 has not been as high as it would’ve been if it had launched in unrestricted movie theaters. But, its success was enough for a third Wonder Woman film to be confirmed and helmed by Patty Jenkins.
It should be noted that another DC Comics film, The Suicide Squad, is also going to get the theater/HBO Max treatment later this year.
