Audience viewership Following its opening weekend, Warner Bros. announced that HBO Max saw total viewing hours on the film's first day more than triple in comparison to a typical day in the previous month. Samba TV later reported that the film was watched in 3.2 million households within its first week of release and 3.9 million in the first 17 days and in over 4.3 million U.S. households by the end of its month. Following its third weekend of release,
Deadline Hollywood wrote "if there's anything positive to report, we'll hear about on the next AT&T earnings call" but if viewership numbers were noteworthy "we would have already heard about it."
Box office Wonder Woman 1984 grossed $46.8 million in the United States and Canada and $122.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $169.6 million. In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside
News of the World,
Promising Young Woman and
Pinocchio and was projected to gross around $10 million from 2,151 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $16.7 million, finishing above expectations and with the best total of the COVID-19 pandemic, but 87% less than the first film's opening weekend. Over 10,000 private screenings of the film were held, accounting for about $2 million (12%) of the opening weekend total. It fell 68% in its second weekend, grossing $5.4 million. In its third weekend the film fell another 46% to $3 million, with
Deadline Hollywood saying it "continued to emulate the legs of a horror movie". The film grossed $2.2 million in its fourth weekend, finishing second behind newcomer
The Marksman. Internationally, the film was expected to debut to around $60 million from 32 countries. Global projections were subsequently lowered to $35–40 million and the film went on to debut to $38.2 million, including $5 million from IMAX screens. China was the largest opening with $18.7 million, followed by Taiwan ($3.5 million), Thailand ($2 million), Brazil ($1.7 million), Japan ($1.1 million), Mexico ($1.4 million), the United Kingdom ($1.2 million) and Spain ($1.1 million). In its second weekend of international release, the film made $19.4 million from 40 countries. Its largest markets were Australia ($4.5 million) and Japan ($2.5 million), while China's running total reached $23.9 million.
Critical response Slate called
Wonder Woman 1984s critical response "lukewarm", Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale (lower than the "A" received by its predecessor), and PostTrak reported 78% of those gave the film a positive score, with 67% saying they would definitely recommend it. Jake Coyle of
The Associated Press considered the film "both campier and more real than Marvel movies — more like the page-turning thrill of a comic book", writing that the film has "ambitions...just outside its grasp, but it seldom feels predestined or predictable — a preciously rare commodity in the genre." Nicholas Barber of BBC gave the film four stars out of five, likening it favorably to a 1980s blockbuster and considering the plot to have a "sweet fairy-tale aspect." Richard Roeper of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying, "To be sure, we get a classic comic book movie storyline about a megalomaniacal madman intent on taking over the world, but there's often a relatively light tone to the proceedings. This is a throwback piece of pure pop entertainment." Alonso Duralde of
TheWrap wrote: "Even if the notion of wishes — making them and then takesies-backsies — isn't quite a cinematic enough concept to support Wonder Woman's final face-off with Lord,
Wonder Woman 1984 still brings a freshness and a wit that's often lacking in these gargantuan costumed-hero sagas." Writing for
The Guardian,
Peter Bradshaw gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and stated, "Gadot is terrifically imposing, while Kristen Wiig is the scene-stealing antagonist in Patty Jenkins' epically brash sequel." Manohla Dargis of
The New York Times wrote that "Patty Jenkins is behind the camera again, but this time without the confidence. Certainly some of the problems can be pinned on the uninterestingly janky script, a mess of goofy jokes, storytelling clichés and dubious politics." Adam Graham of
The Detroit News gave the film a "C" and wrote that "the result is far from wondrous, a reminder of the limitations of the superhero genre and the ways its escapist trappings sacrifice key storytelling elements (narrative, characters, dialogue) for empty spectacle." Mick LaSalle of the
San Francisco Chronicle praised Gadot, writing "Her performance here has dignity and earned emotion" and calling her the best thing about the film, adding, "She was the best thing in the first installment, too, but that was an excellent movie. This one isn't." He concluded, "Often, it's a beautiful-looking film — but it's beauty without substance."
Controversy A plot point in which Steve inhabits the body of another man, credited as "Handsome Man", was criticized as Steve puts this body into dangerous situations and uses it without consent, including a scene in which it is implied that sex may have occurred between Diana and Steve. Criticism was aimed at the film's lack of acknowledgment of what happened to the man while Steve was inhabiting his body, as well as Diana and Steve not appearing to consider the issue of consent, even if Steve coming back but in another man's body was not any of the characters' intention.
The Mary Sue described the event as a rape and strongly condemned it. Jenkins replied in agreement to a fan's tweet that tries to explain there were no issues with this plot aspect, that the film was following the trope of a body swap, similar to
Big or
Freaky Friday. Bonnie Burton, writing for
CNET, stated that while this may have been Jenkins's intention, the body swap trope may not be as politically correct in the current period as it was in the 1980s.
Accolades ==Future==