The Monster Hunter release date has been changed again. Screen Gems has announced that the long-awaited movie will now battle Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day. The movie was originally set to open in theaters in September, but it was delayed until April 2021 before moving to December 30th of this year. Warner Bros. announced earlier this week that Wonder Woman 1984 will open in theaters, while simultaneously premiering on HBO Max, which gives DC fans a choice of how they’d like to experience the sequel.
As of this writing, movie theaters are open in certain cities around the United States, but that could all change in the coming weeks as the public health crisis continues to surge. Paul W.S. Anderson and Screen Gems seem pretty confident about theaters remaining open for the Monster Hunter premiere. As for how the box office battle with Wonder Woman 1984 will work out, that is unclear, though there won’t be much else in the way of box office competition on the holiday.
It isn’t clear if the studio has another plan in place for Monster Hunter in case movie theaters are not open on Christmas Day this year. Warner Bros. has a backup plan with Wonder Woman 1984 being able to be streamed on the same day, so they could end up seeing a boost in HBO Max subscriptions when the time comes. Regardless, the sequel will be some kind of success, though that will be compared to everything else in 2020. Monster Hunter trailers have gone a long way in raising hype for the video game movie, though it remains to be seen if fans will be flocking to the theaters to see it this Christmas.
As of this writing, it is believed that Monster Hunter, which stars Milla Jovovich, will still open December 4th in the U.K. The studio has not announced any international changes, though that could happen in the end. In addition to the new 2020 release date, it was also revealed that the movie will be playing in IMAX theaters that are able to have their doors open on Christmas Day. Movie theaters across North America were forced to shut down back in March of this year, and in many large cities like New York and Los Angeles, they were never able to open on a large scale.
Most of the studios have taken their big 2020 movies and moved them well into 2021. Marvel Studios was supposed to release Black Widow and the Eternals movie this year, but after some major discussion, the studio decided to push both movies out about a year from their original release dates. Warner Bros. decided to do the same thing with their long-awaited Dune, though they released Christopher Nolan’s Tenet over the summer and still plan to have Wonder Woman 1984 open in theaters on Christmas Day. Deadline was the first to announce the new release date for Monster Hunter.
