It’s good news and bad news for the new Christopher Nolan film Tenet as box office numbers come in. While the movie has now earned hundreds of millions around the world, the movie’s performance in the United States is lackluster at best.
Variety reports that Tenet has now crossed the $207 million mark in the global box office, with $50 million of it coming from two weekends in China. The total international box office -- excluding the United States -- is at $177.5 million.
However, Variety also notes that Tenet will have to earn substantially more than that if it is to make any profit. As pointed out by the publication, Warner Bros. spent $200 million to produce the movie excluding marketing costs. Tenet needs to make $400 million to recoup its budget and $450 million to earn a profit.
Achieving that is going to be difficult, according to CNBC. The movie’s North American take for its second weekend in cinemas has only been $6.7 million. Unlike earlier expectations that Tenet would bring moviegoers to theaters, people are choosing to stay at home instead.
The $6.7 million take is further complicated by the fact that Warner Bros. fudged the numbers with regards to Tenet’s take during the Labor Day weekend. It turns out that the movie only actually earned $9.4 million during its opening weekend, excluding earnings from previews that Warner Bros. included.
This is contrary to Warner Bros. announcing that the movie made $20 million in the United States. The disappointing take comes even after a number of theaters in states like Maryland, Alaska, California, and New Jersey reopened to screen the new Christopher Nolan film.
Other films aren’t doing any better either. New Mutants only earned $2.1 million over the weekend. Internationally, it has only earned $3.8 million on its third weekend. It has only grossed $15.3 million in the United States and $29 million worldwide.
Perhaps the only shining light is Sony’s new release, The Broken Hearts Gallery, which brought in $1.125 million. Since acquiring the rights to the movie only cost Sony $8 million, it is likely to turn a profit for the studio even without blockbuster returns.
Whether movie theaters and the film industry, in general, can go back to normal levels of income will depend heavily on the state of the global coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, it does not look like the pandemic is going to be over any time soon.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are currently 6,467,481 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States as of Sept. 13. Deats are now at 193,195 people.
Globally, the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 28,637,952 as of Sept. 13. There are now 917,417 people that have died from COVID-19 around the world.