Nolan's 'Tenet' earns $20.2mn in US, Canada in first week
It looks all good for Tenet. Considering the current situation of coronavirus pandemic, the United States seems to have received the film well. The Labor Day weekend concluded with a hopeful box office collection of $20.2 million in the US and Canada (combined). Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. shouldn't be disheartened with this result right now as the film may run for weeks.
Over the weekend, Tenet was screened at 2,810 theaters in the two neighboring countries. Analysts are confident about Tenet's performance in the home country and are willing to wait it out to see people returning to theaters. It has earned this much despite having theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco shut. Meanwhile, Tenet has earned nearly $150 million in international markets.
Tenet, Unhinged and The New Mutants have managed to resuscitate theaters in recent times. Said to be doing better than others, Tenet was screened at 272 IMAX auditoriums, making it the largest Labor Day opening for IMAX. Notably, Nolan's last movie Dunkirk had opened at top 20 IMAX screens but Tenet has only 7 of those for screening.
The credit for this promising opening goes to the marketing strategy of Warner Bros. as it decided to launch the film in smaller markets in the US and eventually make its way to bigger ones. Distributors in Maryland, New Jersey and San Diego have helped Tenet taste the plan's success. The film will pick up the pace if theaters in San Francisco reopen now.
However, expecting a pre-pandemic box-office run is too much to ask for now. Analysts are still tracking global recovery of cinema during pandemic. "Domestically, while our results show positive like-for-like theater indicators compared to previous films such as Dunkirk, there is literally no context in which to compare the results of a film opening during a pandemic with any other circumstance," Warner Bros. said.
