Patty Jenkins appeared on a panel for CinemaCon in Las Vegas Thursday, and once again voiced her displeasure with the day & date model that befell her 2020 film Wonder Woman 1984, Deadline reports.
Warner Bros. announced in November that Wonder Woman 1984 would be released simultaneously in theaters and the streaming service, HBO Max, setting off a chain reaction for the studio’s 2021 slate. While Jenkins implored people at the time to see WW84 in movie theaters when it was “made safe to do so,” she has always acknowledged that the pandemic put WB in a difficult situation.
“I don’t know what I would have done differently because I feel that, at the end of the day, it was a compromised decision based on a series of compromised options. There wasn’t a good option,” Jenkins toldThe Hollywood Reporter in June. “Unlike a lot of the movies coming out now, we had been sitting on a finished movie for a while. From there, we watched as every movie was cascading back.”
Before receiving the day & date treatment in December 2020, WW84 was pushed back several times as the studio tried to tread the unpredictable waters of the pandemic. Jenkins struck a similar tone at CinemaCon, saying, “It was the best choice in a bunch of bad choices at the moment,” while admitting the unorthodox release was a “heartbreaking experience.”
WW84 grossed just over $166 million worldwide, with less than $47 million coming in domestically. It was a significant drop from $822 million earned by the first installment. Jenkins said making the sequel available in theaters and for streaming was “detrimental to the film,” adding, “I knew that could have happened.”
In her THR interview earlier this year, Jenkins said she believes the theater industry would eventually make a comeback because studios would prefer to see its films profit as much as possible, instead of allowing its streaming services to flourish. “Are studios really going to give up billion-dollar movies just to support their streaming service? Financially, I don’t think it makes sense,” she said. “I see theatrical coming back, and both should exist and will exist. People like to go to the movies. It’s not because they couldn’t see movies at home. We’ve always been able to watch movies at home. It’s nothing new. I think it’s totally coming back.”
If studios continue to deploy the day & date model, Jenkins doesn’t want to be a part of it. “I’m not a fan of day-and-date and I hope to avoid it forever,” she said. “I make movies for the big screen experience.”
When asked if she would consider doing a film for Netflix, Jenkins said she would rather work on a television show with the streaming giant.
Jenkins shouldn’t have to consider a move to streaming anytime soon since she’s been tapped to direct Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, which is slated for 2023 release, as well as writing and directing the third and final entry in the Wonder Woman trilogy.
