THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' pushed as Hollywood seeks to buy more time

Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' pushed as Hollywood seeks to buy more time

Hollywood's reopening will need to wait two more weeks - at least.

Warner Bros. announced Friday it was pushing "Tenet," its new Christopher Nolan movie with designs on kick-starting the moribund theater economy, back two weeks. It will now open on July 31 instead of July 17.

The postponement signals the first crack in a studio, and filmmaker, that had previously remained steadfast in its belief that audiences will return to theaters in mid-July even as nearly every competitor was scrambling to push movies deeper into the summer or later with the spread of Covid-19. And it chips away at Hollywood's broader hopes that it could salvage much of its important summer season during the pandemic.

In a statement, WB did not specify reasons for the postponement.

"We're especially thrilled, in this complex and rapidly changing environment, to be bringing Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet,' a global tentpole of jaw-dropping size, scope and scale, to theaters around the world on July 31," said WB Motion Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich. "It's been longer than any of us could've imagined since we've seen a movie on the big screen."

But concern has been rising in recent days that the kind of mass audience needed for a release of this scale would not be ready to return to theaters in just five weeks. The news comes as some states, like Arizona, have seen a rise in Covid hospitalizations and many California counties have been embroiled in controversy over how to impose safety measures like mask-wearing.

"Tenet," starring John David Washington, is a $200 million action-adventure from a director with a strong box-office record, with Nolan's "Inception," "Dunkirk" and the "Dark Knight" movies generating billions of dollars in box office around the world. As theaters begin to reopen, theaters have placed their hopes on the filmmaker to rescue them from a disastrous 2020.

Publicly, at least, the National Association of Theatre Owners that represents theaters endorsed the delay.

"Over these last months we have been keeping Warner Bros. closely informed of our work toward reopening our theaters in accordance with governmental health and safety requirements, and we are looking forward to audiences enjoying Tenet in our theaters all around the world on July 31st," it said in a statement.

But the move is likely to create a domino effect, delaying a series of movies. "Mulan," the Disney action-adventure reboot, is scheduled to open one week after on July 24 after being postponed from its initial March date. Yet Disney chief executive Bob Chapek said on a conference call with analysts last month that he was grateful not to be going first, and some in the industry believe "Mulan" will now move too and come out after "Tenet," no earlier than Aug. 7.

With that move, a carefully orchestrated sequence would be upended. Paramount Pictures is scheduled to open "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run," on Aug. 7 and Warner Bros is slated to turn around and open "Wonder Woman 1984″ the following week. Those films could now get pushed to late August or out of the summer entirely; studios are reluctant to go head-to-head with other films at a time when it is unclear there is a broad audience for even one film.

That would have a broad financial impact on Hollywood. Theaters have lost billions since movie theaters closed on a wide scale in March with the outbreak of the pandemic, as studios pushed all major movies coming out before July 4. Last year, the April-June period brought in $3.4 billion in box-office receipts. This year thus far it's generated just $2 million, largely from a smattering of reopened theaters showing classic films.

On Friday, one domino already fell as "Unhinged" - an action-thriller starring Russell Crowe from the independent Solstice Studios that had been scheduled as a warmup act of sorts on July 1 - was moved to July 10 in the wake of the "Tenet" news.

Meanwhile, the push from some studios to release movies digitally during the pandemic remains strong. This weekend sees Universal Pictures put out "The King of Staten Island," a much-anticipated new movie from Judd Apatow inspired by the life of and starring "SNL" personality Pete Davidson. Universal decided this week not to put the film even in the few theaters that are open so it could make the film available exclusively on digital rental platforms.

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