HBO Max announced this afternoon it will show the Christmas premiere of Wonder Woman 1984 in 4K HDR, the first title the streamer will offer in the new picture format. The film will be available in HDR 10 and Dolby Vision.
Wonder Woman 1984, which will also debut in theaters on Christmas, will also be available in Dolby Atmos.
The 4K edition of Wonder Woman 1984 will be available on supported devices including Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, Amazon Fire TV Cube and 4K Fire TV Edition smart TVs, Chromecast Ultra, AT&T TV and supported Android TV devices.
HBO Max says more 4K movies and series will be made available in 2021 as well as additional supporting devices.
Warner Media, which owns HBO Max, announced last month that Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to the 2017 smash, Wonder Woman, will premiere Christmas day simultaneously on HBO Max and in movie theaters.
The unusual pairing of a streaming and theatrical debut for a blockbuster film such as Wonder Woman 1984 is necessitated by two factors:
1. The Coronavirus pandemic has rendered movie theaters near ghost towns with most Americans unwilling to risk catching the virus to watch a two-hour film.
2. AT&T, which owns Warner Media, and HBO Max, is under great pressure to make HBO Max a huge success. The service launched on May 27, but badly trails rivals such as Netflix and Disney+ in subscribers. HBO Max’s slow climb is due in part to not being on the nation’s two leading streaming devices, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, due to carriage disputes. However, Amazon recently agreed to add HBO Max to its Fire TV products, and Wonder Woman 1984 could pressure Roku to do the same in the next month.
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— Phillip Swann
