'Tenet' Continues to Underwhelm At US Box Office
Hailed as a potential savior of the American box office before its release, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet has become anything but that. It has been almost a month since Tenet’s release and the film is still struggling to make a dent in the American box office.
Variety reports that the latest weekend numbers for Tenet show it almost being matched by the 1993 comedy Hocus Pocus starring Bette Midler. The film was re-released to coincide with the upcoming Halloween celebrations.
Hocus Pocus ended up earning $1.9 million after screening in 2,570 theaters. Tenet, meanwhile, played in 2,722 theaters but only managed to earn $2.7 million. Rounding up the top earners for the weekend is The New Mutants, which managed to earn a million dollars from 2,154 locations.
Forbes says that Tenet’s anemic performance is reflected in the rest of the American box office, which is has described as “embarrassingly small.” Other films released over the past few weeks have been re-releases, such as Hocus Pocus and The Empire Strikes Back.
On its second weekend, The Empire Strikes Back earned $335,000, a steep 63 percent drop from its $908,000 earnings last week. The total earnings for The Empire Strikes Back this year now amounts to $2.27 million.
Outside of the United States, Tenet is doing better, considering the circumstances. The global box office take for Tenet now stands at $307 million worldwide, making it the 2020’s third biggest-grossing movie. Bad Boys for Life and The Eight Hundred hold second and first place, respectively.
At the end of its run, Bad Boys for Life was able to earn $430 million worldwide. Meanwhile, The Eight Hundred is expected to bow from Chinese cinemas with a worldwide take upwards of $445 million.
Tenet’s mild domestic earnings will definitely have a ripple effect on other blockbusters scheduled down the line. Wonder Woman 1984, which has been moved from Oct. 2 to Christmas Day, is likely to be moved to a different premiere date once again.
Disney’s Black Widow, which was slated to be released on Nov. 6, has now been moved to May 7, 2021. Films like The Kings Man, Candyman, and the latest James Bond film No Time to Die, have also changed their release dates.
With the global coronavirus pandemic continuing to affect the United States and the rest of the globe, it is unlikely that theaters will be able to recover anytime soon. According to the Oct. 4 update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 7,359,952 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country. 208,821 people have now died from COVID-19.
Globally, the World Health Organization’s Oct. 4 updates posted the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 34,804,348 people. There are now 1,030,738 people that have died from COVID-19 worldwide.