Does Wonder Woman 1984 Lasso have any new subscribers for HBO Max?

In Wonder Woman 1984, Diana Prince uses her magical Lasso of Truth to swing, like Spider-Man, from (at various times) a mall railing, a rocket-propelled grenade, and a real lightning bolt. From a logistical point of view, these movements seem rather risky. Kind of like how, in an unprecedented break with the way tentpole titles are usually published, the film’s distributor, Warner Bros., switched WW84 in North American theaters and on HBO Max on Christmas Day – providing the first real barometer of how blockbusters will perform as part of the studio’s controversial “hybrid model” for its 17 films in 2021. The question is Next: Did the $ 200 million DC Extended Universe sequel manage to attract a substantial number of new subscribers for WarnerMedia’s all-new streaming service?

When more than 60% of the country’s theaters remain closed to the public, and all other high-profile 2020 event films except for Principle and a handful of resistance fighters were dropped from the year’s release schedule as coronavirus infection rates continued to cut the oxygen from the film industry, WarnerMedia has bet big. It turned the time-cherished distribution scheme upside down, first in theaters, for an old-fashioned summer blockbuster with the bare aim of generating new listings for its beleaguered OTT platform.

Theatrically, the results do not seem good or catastrophic. During his first weekend, Wonder Woman 1984 grossed $ 16.7 million – beating preview expectations to record the biggest box office opening of the N95 era – but slipped to just $ 5.5 million in its second week -end to close out Hollywood’s least profitable year to date. (The film totaled $ 118.5 million worldwide.)

When it comes to streaming, WarnerMedia celebrated WW84 to have “broken records and exceeded our expectations,” but did not disclose any HBO Max subscriber data that would have confirmed – or invalidated – the effectiveness of this move.

However, according to streaming services measurement and analytics company Antenna, Warner can claim a big win, if she qualifies. In Wonder Woman 1984The first three days on HBO Max, the platform saw more new sign-ups than any other streaming service saw in any other three-day period in the past year. It is important to note that Antenna does not yet publish specific subscriber screening numbers as a policy. But comparative data released by the company on Monday shows that WW84 beat his closest finalist, the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton on Disney +, 40%. And he eclipsed third place winner Disney + Soul, which also came out on Christmas, by a whopping 107 percent.

To put this success in perspective, says Antenna WW84 vastly surpassed the only other mega-budget event title of the year to go straight to streaming, generating 5.7 times more new subscriptions in the US than Disney’s $ 200 million live adaptation Mulan. (In contrast, according to Samba TV, a viewer-tracking company that pulls data from 13.5 million smart TVs across the United States, Soul got something upset over Christmas weekend: The less-promoted Pixar Animated Madness was watched by 2.4 million homes on Disney + while Wonder Woman 1984 aired in just 2.2 million homes in the same three days.)

Yet even with a mass of handpicked information giving WarnerMedia executives reason to sing, in brave new Hollywood post-pandemic, the quantification business Wonder Woman 1984 like a streaming hit remains far from straightforward. While studios such as Universal and Warner Bros. just reduced or closed the 90-day “window” between a movie’s theatrical release and its online availability, most industry watchers say it’s still far too early to count WW84short-term victory as a victory in continuous warfare. In the continued absence of a standardized movie chain operation, the common refrain in Hollywood is that audience behavior remains impossible to predict. And to hear it from an Antenna executive who spoke to Vulture in the background, though Wonder woman jam new registrations to HBO Max like no other title before it, so far we can only see half the success 1984 it is true.

The key metric – subscriber retention – remains unknown. Whether customers stay loyal to the platform, or just cancel HBO Max and re-subscribe every time a new movie they want to see is online, everyone’s guessing.