‘Tenet’ has middling release in U.S. as Hollywood reopens on Labor Day weekend

Hampering “Tenet’s” box-office take was the fact movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles, the country’s top two markets, remain closed by government order. Only neighboring areas, such as San Diego and New Jersey, are currently open in those regions. There is no concrete word on when theaters will reopen in either city, though theater owners remain hopeful that that moment will come in a matter of weeks.

With a $200 million production budget and additional marketing costs totaling tens of millions more, “Tenet” is a key movie not just for theaters but also for Warner Bros.’ bottom line. The film was originally scheduled to debut in mid-July but was postponed several times as the virus surged throughout the United States over the summer, before finally landing in early September.

The movie will have a long way to go if it hopes to approach the inflation-adjusted $348 million that “Inception” totaled in the United States a decade ago.

Still, while not overwhelming, the opening numbers offer a rebuttal of sorts to the many pundits — and rival studios — who said releasing a major film during the third-quarter of 2020 was unwise. In the wake of the shutdown, many studios have moved films to 2021 or to on-demand platforms.

Rival studios are also watching the “Tenet” release to gauge whether moviegoers are likely to emerge from their homes once the pandemic eases. Many studios still have major releases scheduled for the United States in the fourth quarter: MGM’s James Bond installment “No Time to Die” and Disney’s “Black Widow,” and “West Side Story.” Warner Bros. itself is using “Tenet” as a gateway to other big releases in the coming months, including “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Dune.”

Executives at theater chains are trying to stay optimistic about the domestic release of “Tenet.”

“We had a lot of sellout shows. Unfortunately, some of them were 50 people and some were 25 people,” said Mooky Greidinger, chief executive of Cineworld, which owns Regal, the country’s second-largest cinema chain; he noted social distancing requirements limit theaters to as little as 25 percent capacity in some markets. “But in general, it looked like the campaign worked,” he said.

He encouraged patience in judging the outcome. “If you want to see the total result, you need to wait for Monday a week from tomorrow,” Greidinger said, noting more markets will be open and people will continue to come out in existing ones.

Warner Bros. hopes the lack of competition and Nolan’s historic pattern of movies that perform strongly well into their second month of release can provide a boost.

Meanwhile, “Tenet” continues to steam ahead overseas. After a strong debut last weekend, the film reached $126 million internationally this weekend, with numbers pacing well in many territories.

In France, for instance, the movie has taken in $10.7 million in its first 10 days of release, a reasonably respectable fraction of the inflation-adjusted $51 million “Inception” grossed in 2010. In Germany, the number was $8.7 million compared to $44 million for “Inception”; “Tenet” there also dropped just 24 percent compared to its opening weekend, a very small number.

“Tenet” opened in China this weekend, too, where it grossed $30 million amid competition from local-language hit “The Eight Hundred.” The movie will face more competition next weekend as Disney opens “Mulan” there.

Overall, “Tenet’s” overseas $126 million total is at least on the path to approaching “Inception,” which drew an inflation-adjusted $635 million in 2010. A figure even half that sum, many analysts say, will be solid in a climate where public life is so uncertain.

The “Tenet” rollout comes as Disney attempted a different model for “Mulan,” its live-action reboot that had also been postponed multiple times. The company earlier this summer decided to release the film as a premium $30 purchase to Disney Plus subscribers in the many territories where the service has launched, which includes the United States and much of Western Europe. But it has put the film in theaters in other places.

Among them are Taiwan and Thailand, where the movie opened reasonably well this weekend — it grossed $1.2 million in each market, Disney said Sunday.

By comparison, “Aladdin,” another live-action reboot of a 1990s animated hit, opened to $1.6 million and $1.1 million in those territories in a pre-pandemic 2019.

“Mulan” will open in China next weekend, where it is expected to do its strongest business thanks to its Chinese stars and location. Disney has not released numbers on how many U.S. and European subscribers purchased the movie, which would provide the greatest indication of whether its digital-first strategy was wiser than Warner Bros.’ theater exclusivity.