Warner Bros. recently announced that their upcoming lineup of films, all the way to the end of 2021, will be released on HBO Max as well as in theaters. The decision has since prompted a lot of backlash, especially in regards to the future of the industry amid the growing interest in streaming platforms. Though if anything, the silver lining is that fans of Wonder Woman 1984 will no longer have to wait for the pandemic to subside, which, evidently, isn’t going to happen for at least a couple of months, to see the movie.
Of course, the sequel for Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince has already been pushed back several times, but luckily for us, the studio finally realized that delaying Patty Jenkins’ flick any further would cause folks to lose interest. And besides, despite the start of the vaccination process, it’ll still be a while before things go back to the way they were as the global community grapples with the second wave of the infectious disease.
A lot of experts seem to think that this move by the studio to release their 2021 films on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously will have undesirable ramifications for the industry, and it certainly will. But the company has also had to consider compensation for the cast and crew of the various projects that are impacted.
As you may know, big movie stars like Gal Gadot sometimes receive a percentage of their movie’s box office gross. The same thing extends to directors of high stature, who usually get a cut of the net profits. And according to The New York Times, the Wonder Woman 1984 actress will be receiving at least an additional $10 million to compensate for the sequel’s release on HBO Max, given the fact that it’s not going to gross as much as projected with the simultaneous premiere.
Warner Bros. currently has 17 major films on the horizon, including Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and the hotly anticipated Godzilla vs. Kong, all slated for release on their streaming service, but right now, it remains to be seen whether the stars of those projects will receive the same treatment as Gal Gadot.