'Tenet' Earns $20 Million In The United States
Tenet was hailed as the savior of the box office when its movie theater debut in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic was announced, and now it looks like the Christopher Nolan is indeed living up to expectations.
Variety reports that Tenet’s Labor Day weekend opening has resulted in a $20.2 million box office take for the film, prompting studio Warner Bros. to comment that the film’s initial results were very pleasing.
While $20 million may not seem like impressive returns for a Christopher Nolan film, analysts have called it “as good as it gets” due to numerous theaters still being closed in the United States due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
The good box office returns are also the result of a number of movie theaters reopening for Tenet. Before the film’s Friday release, Regal Cinemas in New Jersey and Maryland reopened. A number of cities in California also reopened their theaters for the movie. Three theaters in Anchorage, Alaska also reopened.
Deadline also reports that Tenet earned $58.1 million from the international box office, bringing the total international box office for the film to an estimated $146.2 million. Tenet had already shown promise in South Korea, where it was able to earn $717,000 just from previews before its wider release in the country. IMAX screenings for the film were also sold out in South Korea.
Tenet also opened in two new international markets, China and Russia. While Tenet did not top the box office in China it did earn $29.6 million, putting it in second place to Chinese film The Eight Hundred, which earned $32.3 million over the weekend.
Other countries that have contributed to Tenet’s international take include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and South Korea. Tenet earned $13.1 million in the United Kingdom, $10.7 million in France, $8.7 million in Germany, and $8.2 million in South Korea.
Whether Tenet can further increase its earnings depends on how many more theaters reopen considering that the global coronavirus pandemic is still very much an issue in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s update for Sept. 6, there are now 6,226,879 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States. There have been 188,051 people that have died from the disease.
As for the rest of the world, the Sept. 6 COVID-19 dashboard of the World Health Organization pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide at 26,763,217 people. There are now 876,616 people around the world that have died from COVID-19.