Warner Bros. Wants 63% of ‘Tenet’s’ Box Office
By George Robbins
The film industry lately has been trying to get back on track after having been closed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic which began in March. This industry wasn’t able to do anything until almost the end of May and many studios are still working on getting their crews back to work. More and more films are being worked on and many that have release schedules for next year will be able to relatively keep their release dates. So long as nothing else goes wrong, they will be able to continue moving along and they can make up for lost time. Unfortunately, one thing that really can’t be made up for is the fact that many films were delayed due to the shut down of theaters.
The mass shut downs of theaters has resulted in numerous studios not having any way whatsoever to show their newest movies other than Video on Demand, or VOD. Studios are not likely to release via this format unless they no longer see a theatrical release as being a viable option anymore. Therefore, while some films have released digitally right away, most films will not actually be doing this and will just wait for a time where a theatrical release is much more viable. Unfortunately, with theaters closed up and only just now starting to reopen, there is a lot of worry in the air in regards to what will happen next. Although they are only just starting to open up again, they will need new content to show to draw people in and studios are more than happy to give it to them.
One of the more inclined studios to actually have something to bring to the table which would give theaters some new content to show would be Warner Bros.. Warner is a massive multi-media company that specializes in film and television and many of the films we see in theaters nowadays are produced by the studio. Among the content that they are planning on releasing is a movie that has been on everyone’s mind as of late, ‘Tenet.’ This mysterious upcoming film has been hyped up because of the nature of the film as well as the fact that the date for it has kept moving back. Director Christopher Nolan’s insistence on the film being among, if not the first film(s) to release after the original theater closings has drawn even more attention to the film.
Even after the pandemic began, Warner Bros. were still marketing ‘Tenet’ to the general public as they felt that they would be able to show it on its original release date, July 17th. Unfortunately, another surge in the virus resulted in the date being pushed back into August and eventually pulled domestically altogether until they could figure out an appropriate date to launch the film. This ended up being September 3rd domestically, and so the film will finally get to see the light of day. Getting back to the marketing though, between that and the production costs, WB needs to make a lot of money if they are going to make anything on the film. As such, they have concluded that they want 63% of whatever the movie makes at the Box Office. Normally the take on films in theaters ends up being a 50/50 split or something close to it, but given all that has happened, this isn’t really all that surprising.