Of all the DC projects Warner Bros. had in the oven, Wonder Woman 1984 seemed like the safest bet of all. It’s the sequel to one of the best-received superhero movies of the modern era, all the advance material from the set looked amazing and it takes place in the 1980s. Everyone loves the 80s, right? That’s why it came as such a surprise that the studio completely reshuffled their slate earlier this week, pushing back Wonder Woman 1984 from November 1st, 2019 all the way to June 5th, 2020.
Warner’s president of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein explained the move as follows:
“We had tremendous success releasing the first Wonder Woman film during the summer, so when we saw an opportunity to take advantage of the changing competitive landscape, we did. This move lands the film exactly where it belongs.”
But honestly, who believed that?
Now, YouTuber Grace Randolph claims she knows the real reason why the film was delayed, and that’s because it’s going to become *drumroll* Wonder Woman 1984: Flashpoint. Now stop. Wait a minute, what the hell is that? As Randolph explains, with the likely departure of Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck from the key roles of Superman and Batman, Warner Bros. are eager to reboot the DCEU. The purported plotline of the pic is that Diana doesn’t want to lose Steve Trevor a second time, so saves his life. This alters the timeline though and gives birth to a ‘new’ DCEU in which the studio can recast and reboot their major heroes.
The intention is that through timeline fudging they can keep the parts of the DCEU that everyone likes (uh, just Gal Gadot’s Diana then, I guess) and jettison everything that doesn’t (all the rest). It also leaves the Flash free to have his own adventures in 2021 without having to worry about reworking the entire DC timeline.
Now, I’m a bit skeptical that this is going to happen, if only because it sounds like an incredibly dumb move from Warner Bros. that could totally wreck Wonder Woman 1984. Then I look back at the last three or four years of decisions they’ve made and think that it kind of makes sense. But I also have no idea when Grace Randolph gets her information from, so for all I know she could be pulling this straight out of her ass.
