‘Tenet’ Is Making A Fair Bit of Money Worldwide Now
By George Robbins
Movie theaters are currently giving it their all in order to draw people in so that they can make revenue for the first time in months. Things haven’t been working out so well for theaters as they were among the first round of businesses to shut down at the start of the pandemic. Considering the fact that theaters are nothing but enclosed spaces that seat numerous people for hours at a time, this isn’t really all that surprising. The next few months to follow their closing have been nothing short of interesting as they have been trying to figure out how it is that they actually wanted to reopen their doors. Not too long ago, they were actually given that opportunity and most theaters opened back up to the public.
The reopening of theaters was not without issues as they have had nothing but trouble in drawing people in to watch movies. This is why we are now hearing about theaters in the United States thinking about shutting down once again because they aren’t getting enough customers. Considering how volatile the situation with the pandemic is in the United States, it is no surprise that consumers are wary to go back to theaters. This is the correct response during this period of time because why would people want to go back to the aforementioned enclosed spaces filled with disease. Due to the fact that it is kind of hard for the average person to be able to tell who has the virus or not at a glance, this should be expected.
Now that theaters in the U.S. are suffering after reopening their doors, the box office in the domestic market has really started suffering as well. This is most apparent with Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster ‘Tenet’ due to the fact that, despite having a strong opening weekend, the movie has had nothing but bad box office returns since. Originally, the film was set to release back in July, but due to theaters pushing off their openings due to the pandemic, they pushed it to August. The final release date for the film was set near the end of August for international releases and the end of August/early September for domestic. After those two openings, it had managed to bring in nearly $150 millions, but as previously stated, this started to drop off.
Despite many theaters being opened domestically and rules for occupancy being put in place to protect customers, people simply didn’t want to risk it. This is how the movie ended up only grossing a few million domestically the following weekends after the film’s release. This was something that didn’t just affect ‘Tenet’ as it meant that theaters were going to have a rough time moving forward, but it definitely affected ‘Tenet’ pretty hard. This is due to the fact that the movie has to apparently bring in a total of $500 million at the box office in order to cover the film before marketing costs. Needless to say that things just aren’t looking up for the studio and its movie given the fact that they need to make a lot more than the $500 million to break even after everything is said and done.
It would appear now, that the studio might not have an incredible amount of trouble to worry about as it seems the movie is still on its way to making its goal. Although it is still a long ways off, the movie has still been doing alright internationally, though still not to the degree the studio is hoping for. While the domestic box office is remaining pretty stagnant, the international one is slowly climbing as ‘Tenet’ is now sitting at around $300 million. This gives the movie a pretty good chance at getting to the break even goal within a couple of months time, but it still doesn’t fix the whole issue. The movie still has a long way to go before it makes the money Warner Bros. was hoping it would.