Ahead of its U.S. debut, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet will release internationally in 70 countries starting August 26. Following its international release, the movie will be released in a few cities of the U.S. over the Labour Day weekend from September 3. The name of those select cities hasn’t been announced yet.
The release of Tenet marks one of the rarest times that a big-budget movie is releasing outside of the U.S. before the release in North America. Also, there is no news about the Tenet releasing in China yet.
The countries that are chosen to enjoy the early release include - Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
Theatres all around the world were locked shut to contain the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. However, amid the growing recovery rate, many countries have begun reopening their theatres with limited capacity and other prevention measures.
The U.S. has seen a meteoric surge in the number of Coronavirus cases. Although North America remains one of the biggest movie markets in the world, the release at a wide scale in the region doesn’t seem very possible in the light of the ongoing series of events.
In contrast, Nolan’s advocacy for ‘movies in movie theatres’ is hidden to none. Probably, the same is the reason that Tenet is set to be the first tentpole to release widely in theatres all across the world since the outburst of the coronavirus including select venues in the U.S. But experts are speculating that Warner Bros’ move to release Tenet at this point in time may prove to be a pricey step.
Amid the rising number of movies being pushed back, Nolan’s Tenet signals that movie-makers are fed up with having to release their movies on streaming platforms. Disney’s Mulan has been taken off the calendar and Paramount’s A Quiet Place 2 has also been pushed back by one year straight to next year’s spring. Let’s face it, the streaming platform in no good an alternative to theatrical release. Therefore, the release of Tenet in August is in fact a big leap forward.
Not only movie-makers, but the pandemic has been pretty hard on theater owners and moviegoers as well. It is certain that a lot depends on the performance of Tenet on the big screen – if it does well commercially, more movies will be queued up to release theatrically soon and in case, it bombs, the theatrical release may still be an inactive option.