Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

By George Robbins

These past couple of weeks have been a pretty big deal for folks in the movie industry due to everything that is currently going on with the pandemic still. Theaters have been able to open their doors back up to the public which has given them the chance to once again make some kind of revenue. Considering the fact that they haven’t been making any kind of money over the past six months or so, this is kind of a big deal as the film industry was losing money hand over fist. Losing money doesn’t really sound correct though as they weren’t so much losing it as they were not making any. If they aren’t making any money, then they are slowly losing it due to new production costs and maintenance fees to uphold maintenance on facilities.

Now that we are at least somewhat separated from the start of the pandemic, we have a better handle on things moving forward. Just saying that we have a better handle on things however, doesn’t actually mean that we know what we are doing. It does mean that we are doing our best to try and make due with the new rules that are in place that we now have to follow. Movie theaters have had one of the biggest snags to deal with as of late due to the restrictions that they have had put into place. These restrictions are there as a means of preventing more people from getting sick and, while helpful to the general public, they do movie theaters no real favors. This is mostly due to the fact that theaters are now severely limited on the number of seats that they can sell to the public.

Movie theaters kind of rely upon selling out their seats if they want to make any kind of legitimate revenue, but due to the new rules in place this isn’t easy to do. So the restrictions that have now been put into place limit the number of people who are allowed to occupy space in theaters. Now, at any given time, only a percentage of space in theaters can be occupied by people coming to see new movies. Even larger theaters have an upmost limit to them with many only being allowed to have 100 customers total in order to follow social distancing rules. Thus, it is kind of difficult for theaters to bring in the money that both they need and that studios need. Considering the very limited amount of options available at theaters now, this can get kind of troubling relatively quickly.

Among the very limited number of options currently available to the public at the moment is the new blockbuster from Christopher Nolan, ‘Tenet.’ This movie is one that has been hyped up since the moment trailers started dropping for it some time last year. This is something which is easy for people to understand because the movie instantly gave off an air about it where people just wanted to know what the movie was about. Most people know by now that any new movie Christopher Nolan comes up with, especially new original films, will most definitely be something worth watching. This movie was made all the more interesting by the fact that it was very early on made out to be a spy thriller, but with a twist. It would appear from an early stage that time manipulation of some sort was responsible for a lot of what would be happening.

All of this tied together is what drew the attention of the public and so when the movie was still planning on keeping its original July release date, many were excited. No one was more excited than Christopher Nolan who wanted his movie to be the first blockbuster available to the public once theaters reopened. Unfortunately, this release date was not meant to last as there was a second wave of the virus in the United States therefore, the release date was pushed back a couple of weeks to the beginning of August. Things continued to be negative for Warner Bros. though, as they had to push it again due to a high volume of cases. Eventually, they just decided to hold off until further notice and they instead decided to release the film internationally first. Luckily they were able to give a domestic release only one week after the international and they made a lot of money back.

While the movie has been getting flak for the sound mixing being all messed up to the point it is annoying viewers, the movie has made a lot of money. For instance, it exceeded expectations internationally by bringing in over $100 million on its opening weekend and this past weekend, the total amount brought in after the domestic release exceeded over $150 million. Though very much shy of the $200 million budget for production, it is a strong start to a trend that the studio wants to see continue. The problem is that the movie needs to bring in about $500 million at the box office to break even, before marketing costs are factored in. They are very much willing to go the distance with the movie, but it is a long ways off before they can make the money that they want to see from this movie.