Given Marvel Cinematic Universe’s upper hand in public favor, Warner Bros. and DC Films are probably anxious to see how Wonder Woman, which will open in theatres on June 2, is going to perform. But it’s the moment of truth and everyone sucks in a breath – early tracking numbers are now in.
Most independent trackers are expecting domestic opening weekend to fall within the $65 million range, while one outlying service is optimistically projecting a $105 million debut.
This doesn’t come anywhere near close to the $166 million debut for last year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or the $133 million opening for Suicide Squad, but it resounds a little with some of Marvel’s recent works. Ant-Man (2015) opened with $57 million with Doctor Strange (2016) narrowly outperforming the previous film with $85 million.
This is great news for a movie focused on a female lead in a constantly growing market of superhero films and this is a huge opportunity for relatively new face Gal Gadot, who plays the metal armor-clad heroine.
Unfortunately, Wonder Woman’s more recent DC predecessors all seem to fall victim to the steep second-weekend drop. Poor critical reception and word of mouth prompted second-week drop-offs between 65 and 70 percent, so the burden to achieve success is heavy.
Wonder Woman will also have to tackle the problem of strong competition as Pixar is bringing us back to Radiator Springs with Cars 3 and Universal’s reboot of The Mummy.
The next DC film is currently supported by a solid social media following, with over 28,000 new conversations about Wonder Woman on social media this past week. Advertisements have been a bit lax for Wonder Woman, but tracking data nonetheless confirms anticipation is high.
Because the success of this film will provide huge momentum for the DC cinematic universe’s first huge ensemble feature, Justice League, this November, let’s keep our fingers crossed so Wonder Woman will live up to the expectations on its shoulders!
#Peace.Love.WonderWoman
