In Christopher Nolan’s new thriller, “Tenet,” the fate of humanity pivots on characters moving back and forth through time. It is an epic, brain-bending exploration of ideas the filmmaker has spent decades examining.
But now, as “Tenet” opens after multiple delays in cinemas around the world, it comes loaded with symbolism that its writer and director could never have foreseen. As the first big-budget theatrical release since Covid-19 struck, “Tenet” represents one of the biggest gambles in Hollywood history—from the studio wagering it can release the movie amid the pandemic, to long-dormant theater chains banking on it spurring a recovery for their business, to potential ticket buyers balancing safety concerns with their urge to get back to the big screen.
Mr. Nolan, though known as a champion of the theatrical experience, is somewhat uneasy with all the significance assigned to his sci-fi spy picture. “This is the most radical shift in my career, my lifetime, between the making of a film and the world it goes out into, and I’m still grappling with that,” he says.
Starting with an Aug. 26 opening in parts of Europe and elsewhere, the rollout of “Tenet” reaches the U.S. Sept. 3. It is the fourth domestic release date for the movie—which was delayed repeatedly as studio and theater executives dealt with shifting lockdown measures—yet it is still unclear when it will open in regions where indoor theaters remain closed. That includes two cities that are normally first to get new movies, New York City and Los Angeles.
When coronavirus lockdowns descended in March, Mr. Nolan says, his team’s first challenge was to use remote methods to put the final touches on “Tenet” and turn it in on time to AT&T Inc.’s Warner Bros. studio. Meanwhile, every big movie on deck for the season, starting with the James Bond installment “No Time To Die,” retreated on the calendar to fall or next year. By contrast, Warner Bros. pushed back the July 17 release of “Tenet” by only two weeks, and later pushed it again.
The studio never seriously considered an online premiere for “Tenet,” a Warner Bros. executive says, even as others experimented with online releases, as Disney has done this summer with “Hamilton” and “Mulan.”
Kenneth Branagh in a scene from the Warner Bros. action epic, ‘Tenet.’
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures“Tenet” had a budget of about $200 million. At that scale, there is no alternative to a world-wide theatrical release, Mr. Nolan says, adding that people confuse his commitment to that model for a disdain for digital formats and home viewing. “It’s not just an artistic choice,” he says. “In the current industry in which we work, there’s no path to profitability for a film like this that circumvents movie theaters.”
However, the famously secretive filmmaker made peace with the fact that the staggered release of his movie makes plot spoilers inevitable. “It’s not a time to be precious about anything,” he says. Besides, “Tenet” is so narratively complex, he jokes, “it’s not the kind of film you can spoil.”
As closings dragged on in the U.S., but infection rates dropped in other countries, Warner Bros. abandoned the playbook for tentpole movies requiring simultaneous premieres around the world to maximize opening-weekend returns. Instead, the studio is relying on a patchwork release pattern, starting with international markets it says contributed two-thirds of ticket sales for Mr. Nolan’s past releases. As “Tenet” arrives in various regions (including China, the world’s second-biggest market, on Sept. 4) it won’t face major Hollywood competition until “Wonder Woman: 1984” comes out in October.
‘Tenet’ director Christopher Nolan, at work on the set, says of his sci-fi spy movie, ‘This is the most radical shift in my career, my lifetime, between the making of a film and the world it goes out into.’
Photo: Warner Bros. PicturesThis plan has the industry on the edge of its seat. “This is going to be one of the most important events in cinema this year, if not the most important one,” said Mooky Greidinger, chief executive of Cineworld PLC, the world’s second-largest theater chain and owner of Regal Cinemas in the U.S.
Mr. Washington, a star of ‘Tenet,’ with Mr. Nolan, on the set.
Photo: Warner Bros. PicturesBecause Warner Bros. will have to make money gradually from “Tenet” amid theater attendance caps and a slower pace of ticket sales, the studio is requiring multiplexes to show the movie for up to 12 weeks, a considerable increase from the standard commitment. That is on top of charging cinemas nearly 65% of ticket sales to show the film, instead of closer to the widely accepted 50/50 split, according to a person familiar with the deal terms.
That higher fee for “Tenet” puts the per-ticket cost to theater owners on par with showing a “Star Wars” movie.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, left, and Mr. Washington in a scene from ‘Tenet.’
Photo: Warner Bros. PicturesFor theaters that have been closed, or subsisting on old films and smaller independent releases, “Tenet” represents a potential lifeline. “If this movie didn’t follow this new release pattern, I didn’t think the movies would be open until much later in the year or next year,” says Richard Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, which is showing “Tenet” on 250 of its international screens, with at least 900 more to follow in China, Russia and the U.S.
In that role, Warner Bros. and its star filmmaker have taken plenty of fire, including from critics who accused them of prioritizing an expensive movie over the risk to moviegoers. Debate flared around an online video showing a gung-ho Tom Cruise wearing a mask and joining an audience to watch “Tenet” at a theater in London.
Mr. Nolan supported the studio’s release plan because its gradual pace is designed around “the comfort and safety of our patrons,” he says. “That has to be balanced against the need to return to business.”
“When people think about movies, they tend to think of movie stars and directors and studio executives and people who are massively overprivileged and make more money than they deserve,” Mr. Nolan says. “But the movie business is about people in communities, who work jobs like selling popcorn or taking tickets. It is a massive industry made up of ordinary people.”
At the Music Box Theatre, a 91-year-old independent cinema in Chicago, “Tenet” was delivered last week by a truck carrying it on seven reels of jumbo size 70mm film. Mr. Nolan uses the near-extinct format, along with IMAX film, to maximize the fidelity of his visuals, and their transfer to digital formats. It’s one of only a handful of cinemas equipped to project 70mm prints, and starts sneak-previews of “Tenet” Aug. 31.
“Being able to show that format allows us to compete with the other chains,” says Julian Antos, the theater’s technical director.
Still, the Music Box has to cap attendance in its main 750-seat theater at 50 people due to social-distancing restrictions. They won’t get a pre-show serenade by the theater’s organist because the Music Box can’t afford to pay him yet.
Though Mr. Nolan is one of Hollywood’s most bankable directors—his most lucrative film, 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” grossed $1.1 billion globally—“Tenet” isn’t a typical popcorn movie. Ticket buyers should look up the definition of “entropy” before they head to the theater. Critics have mixed praise for the movie’s technical execution with confusion about its plot.
Like its title, “Tenet” was conceived as a palindrome. The actor John David Washington is an unnamed agent who, with a partner played by Robert Pattinson, learns to use time as a two-way street in a mission to prevent an apocalyptic war.
There are complex action scenes in which characters, cars and bullets move forward and reverse in the same space.
The first images in Mr. Nolan’s breakout film, “Memento,” now seem to foreshadow “Tenet” by about two decades. The scene unfolds backward, with a man’s image disappearing from a Polaroid picture and a spent cartridge flying into a pistol just before it is fired.
The director’s “career does seem cyclical in that respect. Themes and obsessions keep coming back,” says Tom Shone, author of “The Nolan Variations,” a book coming out in October.
Without an opening date yet for “Tenet” in the city where the director lives, Los Angeles, he is forgoing the ritual of popping into a theater where his latest movie is playing. Emma Thomas, a producer of “Tenet” and past movies with Mr. Nolan, her husband, says, “It’s actually a fairly big part of the completion of the process. We never feel like the film is finished until it’s on screen with audiences.”
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