It looks like we won’t be leaving streaming debuts behind in 2020. Several major Hollywood studios are now looking to premiere their major movies on streamers in the new year.
Variety reports that multiple other Warner Bros. movies are set to follow the same route of Wonder Woman 1984 with a hybrid HBO Max and theatrical release – the DCEU sequel will hit the big screen and the small screen simultaneously on Christmas Day due to the ongoing pandemic.
These include the Ryan Coogler-produced drama Judas and the Black Messiah, a biopic about the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton. Daniel Kaluuya is playing Hampton, while his Get Out co-star LaKeith Stanfield is FBI informant William O’Neal. The movie’s first trailer, which dropped in August, assures viewers that it will be released 'only in theatres' sometime in 2021.
Other Warner Bros. releases tipped for straight-to-streaming are crime thriller The Little Things – starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto – which was originally slated for a January 2021 release, and Tom & Jerry: The Movie, which is currently set for release in March 2021.
The studio also considered taking the same route with video game adaptation Mortal Kombat, but it’s now expected to delay the movie’s big-screen debut instead. Originally meant to hit cinemas in spring 2021, it’s now been delayed indefinitely, according to producer Todd Garner.
It’s not just Warner Bros, either – it was recently reported that several Disney movies, including the Emma Stone-led Cruella and live-action remakes of Pinocchio and Peter Pan, could skip cinemas in favour of Disney Plus debuts.
While we wait for the final word on these upcoming movies, check out our list of confirmed movie release dates.
