Wonder Woman 1984 made its overseason debut over the weekend and the results are a bit soft. Is the pandemic to blame? Some will point to yes but subpar marketing in certain foreign regions may also be the culprit.
Wonder Woman 1984 opened to $38.5 million from 30,221 screens. Even with the pandemic weighing on the world, the film was tracking for a $60 million overseas debut and the reason that the overseas numbers are below expectations is that the film only debuted to $18.8 million. The overseas box office had been improving in recent weeks but it should be pointed out that there were also sudden market closures over the past several days overseas as well.
Reviews and fan reactions have been strong for Wonder Woman 1984 but many box office analysts have pointed to the fact that critical and social scores in China for the movie were not good, with the length of the film and lack of action cited as concerns. There has also been discussion about soft marketing which may have contributed to the muted debut. The first Wonder Woman film opened to $38.7 million in China and went on to gross $90.5 million. Given the $18.8 million start, some reports suggest the film will hit about $30 million in China by the end of its run. The film also didn’t see the standard family bump from Friday to Saturday. The sequel saw a 23% increase on Saturday when a movie of this size typically sees a bump of about 50%. This week will see Wonder Woman 1984 swing into nine additional markets including Korea and Australia and Warner Bros. is hoping those markets will improve matters overseas.
On the domestic front, Monster Hunter braved the pre-Christmas pandemic box office and mustered up $2.2 million on its opening weekend. The Paul W.S. Anderson directed Milla Jovovich feature adaptation of the Capcom videogame was tracking at about $4 million so this is a lackluster start, even by pandemic standards. Sony is still hoping for a long-haul performance for Monster Hunter over the Christmas stretch and is looking at how the film will perform until January 3.
Monster Hunter is fully respecting the theatrical window and isn’t launching immediately on PVOD. The reasoning for the opening in theaters was to capitalize on the China market where Anderson, Jovovich, and their Resident Evil movies have pulled in a lot of money. This plan was thwarted when China authorities blocked the film in their market because of a scene that was deemed racist. Despite this obstacle, Sony didn’t spend much on the marketing spend on the film in the States so this could end up being a wash for them, all things considered.
