And now we have a third and final trailer for Chris Nolan’s Tenet. The first batch of reviews are out from the handful of “not in America” critics who were able to see it, and the consensus is that it’s quite good (80% fresh and 7.09/10 on Rotten Tomatoes thus far) without necessarily changing the face of cinema as we know it. As someone who feels that way about Inception, that sounds about right. And while it can’t single-handedly save cinemas or bring about the revival of the high-concept mega-budget Hollywood original, it shouldn’t have to. If it’s a good movie that plays well in theaters, well, that should be enough.
As for the trailer, it explains a little bit of the whole “time inversion” thing while giving a spotlight to its “Protagonist” played by John David Washington. In a year where the coronavirus has negated or delayed the presumed excitement (and success) of Mulan, Wonder Woman 1984 and Black Widow (among others), it’s grimly ironic that this Chris Nolan’s first movie with a “not a white guy” protagonist, which has been emphasized in the marketing from the very first teaser last August, is another proverbial casualty of this year’s pandemic. Like Mulan’s debut on PVOD, the nature of its release will dominate the conversation as opposed to the movie itself and/or its commercial and artistic success.
The “Nolan is coming to save the movies!” chatter was somewhat of a journalist-to-journalist game of telephone. Conversely, it made more sense and sounded less obnoxious back when we all presumed that a March lockdown would result in coronavirus being somewhat contained by June. Prior to Memorial Day, when cases kicked back up again, it almost made sense for theaters to hopefully reopen in July and have Tenet and Mulan greeting them with open arms. However, Tenet is, in the end, just a movie, and it shouldn’t be responsible for doing anything other than showing that, if there’s a movie people want to see, audiences will still show up in theaters.
If Unhinged doesn’t break out this weekend, it’ll be because audiences no longer go to the movies just to see a movie, but rather only if there is something specific that they wish to see in theaters. That’s why, for example, Deliver Us From Evil and Train to Busan Presents Peninsula have racked up decent grosses in South Korea as The Eight Hundred, the first new mega-movie to open in China since theaters closed just before New Year’s week (late January), has already earned $54 million as of Friday. To the extent that theatrical moviegoing will be available and relatively safe, it’s a “if you release it, they will come” scenario.
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I’d argue that the “theaters reopening” strategy is a 1-2-3 punch. This weekend will give us Unhinged, which is special merely for being a new movie in wide release even as it’s the kind of movie that would have struggled theatrically even in better times. Next weekend will offer The New Mutants, a bigger movie, a franchise installment no less, but nonetheless a not terribly anticipated offering that’s inspiring more curiosity than passionate anticipation. And then, on the week of September 4, we’re getting the first wide theatrical release that absolutely would have been a monster hit had it opened during better/healthier times. And even then, it won’t be playing in the likes of California and New York.
Warner Bros. is banking on very long legs (megaplexes have to keep the film on their biggest non-IMAX IMAX -0.8% screen for 12 weeks) and its existence as one of the only biggies between August 31 and Black Widow on November 6, but even legs worthy of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace (4.1 x $105 million Wed-Sun = $431 million domestic) only means anything if the movie opens halfway decently. The record for a Fri-Mon Labor Day launch is still $30.5 million for Rob Zombie’s Halloween in 2007, although the skewed release pattern (previews on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then a full release on Thursday the 3rd) will complicate comparisons. And yes, this is all uncharted territory.
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