The biggest test in cinephiles returning to theaters occurred this past weekend with the release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. The release seemed to be a success as Christopher Nolan’s Tenet launched domestically with $20.2 million over the long Labor Day weekend as more U.S. cinemas reopened in earnest after being shut for nearly six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the 20 million dollar take is on the low of end of Nolan films, these are not normal times and considering current circumstances including limited capacity and the fact that only 65 percent of the U.S. market is open, Tenet was always expected to come in well below Nolan’s more recent films. And it certainly scored the top gross domestically of any film that’s rolled out since theaters reopened.
Warner Bros. said in announcing the grosses, “Domestically, while our results show positive like-for-like theater indicators compared to previous films such as Dunkirk, there is literally no context in which to compare the results of a film opening during a pandemic with any other circumstance. We are in unprecedented territory, so any comparisons to the pre-COVID world would be inequitable and baseless.”
Overseas where many countries have been able to reopen more quickly than the U.S. Internationally, Tenet has earned $126 million through its first two weekends for an early global total of $146.2 million. In China, it grossed $30 million to come in No. 2 behind local Chinese war epic The Eight Hundred
Warners believes Tenet will have a longer run in theaters than is usually the case, versus boasting a mega-opening weekend. Most analysts agree, saying the film has a shot at earning $500 million worldwide.