"This experience broke my heart
.
"
Director Patty Jenkins (
Wonder Woman
) has hardly tasted the unusual way in which
Wonder Woman 1984
, her last film made for Warner, was distributed.
Like many other American blockbusters since the start of the health crisis, the latest adventures of the Amazon embodied by Gal Gadot had benefited, last December in the United States, from a simultaneous release in theaters and on the platform. Warner Digital, HBO Max.
A first for the director, this hybrid experience born of Covidian necessities could also be the last of its kind.
Read alsoWhere are the superheroes and their blockbusters that must save the cinema from Covid-19?
"It hurt the film,"
said the American director bluntly, according to comments reported by
Deadline
. Invited to a conference organized Thursday in Las Vegas, on the occasion of the CinemaCon convention, Patty Jenkin returned to the critical and commercial collapse of her second film dedicated to the superheroic Wonder Woman. While conceding that the direct release of her feature film in streaming "
was then the best choice to be made in a pile of bad choices"
, given the
"very dark"
American health situation
of December 2020, the filmmaker did not hid his bitterness about this hybrid mode of diffusion.
“I don't think the experience is the same in streaming.
I used practical special effects, I shot in IMAX, ”said
Patty Jenkins, according to the
Hollywood Reporter
.
"
I make films to bring a cinema experience"
, she also justified herself, hoping to be able
"to avoid forever"
a new experience of this kind.
Vaccinated against streaming
For the director, it is now out of the question to embark on another project of the kind, whether it is again at Warner, or elsewhere, like at Disney or at Netflix.
"I won't
," replied Patty Jenkins categorically at the mention of the pioneer of digital distribution.
I like working with Netflix to make television, but I wouldn't make a movie with them or any other streaming service under these conditions. ”
More broadly, and while theaters must always navigate between the endless rebounds of the epidemic and the growing competition between digital platforms, the director underlined how crucial it remains for a film to live in the cinema before arriving in streaming on the domestic screens.
"If a studio were to take a stand and commit headlong to theatrical releases, filmmakers will flock to it,"
pleaded the director of
Wonder Woman
, specifying that she did not understand the stubbornness of certain studios for simultaneous exits.
To read also Warner will release his films simultaneously in streaming and in theaters, "an earthquake for the industry of the cinema"
Warner, in particular, has regularly found itself under fire from critics in recent months for deciding to release simultaneously in theaters and online all of its 2021 cinema catalog, including the highly anticipated
Dune
by Denis Villeneuve. A surprise decision that shocked and moved the Franco-Canadian director in December:
“With my team we have devoted more than three years of our lives to making it a unique experience to live on the big screen. The image and sound of the film have been meticulously designed to be experienced in theaters. Warner Bros. may have just killed the
“
Dune
”
franchise
. ”
A financial failure poorly supported by a poor criticism,
Wonder Woman 1984
remained available for a month in the United States, on the HBO Max platform, in parallel with theaters. In France, the film avoided appearing on the big screen and was only available for digital and VOD purchase in the spring of 2021. Since the reopening of theaters in North America and Europe, the figures achieved by the news cinema releases seem to have nevertheless regained a little of the animal's hair, even if the improvement remains moderate. On the side of Warner, and despite critics bordering on dithyramb,
The Suicide Squad
made a mixed start at the American box office. The
Black Widow
from Disney also disappointed; underperformance that could be blamed on their simultaneous release on streaming platforms, and their consequent piracy. Despite everything, a third
Wonder Woman
film
directed by Patty Jenkins has already been approved by Warner. Unless the filmmaker has a spectacular turnaround, the new adventure will undoubtedly only be appreciated in dark rooms.
