Weekend Box Office: Tenet is making slightly less money, but still more than anyone else
Aux Features weekend box office
Last Monday, when we looked at the weekend’s box office numbers, we noted that Warner Bros.’ long-term plan for Tenet—to keep it in theaters for as long as possible and make a little bit of money for a long time rather than a lot of money at once, like normal movies did in the before-times—was starting to show some cracks. Tenet was still making more money than the competition, but the rate at which it was making money had started to decline due to the fact that theaters in major cities in the U.S. still haven’t reopened. Without expanding its rollout, which it can’t do because the coronavirus pandemic still isn’t getting any better, Tenet is basically just playing to the same people in the same places. That means, unless things in this country quickly start to magically improve (or people decide to start unnecessarily risking their lives by going to the theater multiple times), Tenet—and the rest of the movies trying a theatrical run—can only make so much money.
The box office is a hard thing to predict, though. Some sure-fire hits land with the painful wet slap of a bellyflop, and sometimes Sonic The Hedgehog makes $300 million worldwide. Then again, sometimes it’s not so hard, and if you’ve been keeping up with the box office reports since we started doing this feature again, you probably won’t be surprised at all when we say that this was one of those predictable weeks. Tenet is still wearing the crown, but as with last week, its throne has continued to crumble. It made $3.4 million, down from nearly $5 million last week, but the real rough part (for Warner Bros.) is that it played at 80 fewer theaters. Tenet has only made $41 million domestically over four weeks, which is still less than Dunkirk made in its opening weekend, so things aren’t looking especially great. Why, it’s almost like the plan to stubbornly release Tenet in theaters in the middle of a global pandemic that the U.S. doesn’t especially give a shit about containing was a bad idea!
Next up is—everybody now!—The New Mutants, which made $1.1 million, bringing it to a total of $19 million over five weeks, followed by Unhinged at $1 million on the dot (for a total of $17 million, suggesting that a lower-budget thriller could pull off the Tenet plan even if Tenet itself can’t). In fourth place, the box office went all the way back to 1980 for The Empire Strikes Back, which added another $900,000 to the $550 million or so it made 40 years ago (try to ignore the icy claw of Death as she taps on your shoulder and offers a haunting reminder that you’re old). After Star Wars is Infidel, the right-wing action movie produced by Dinesh D’Souza, which made only $745,000 despite expanding to 161 additional theaters.
Elsewhere on the list, newcomers Shortcut, The Last Shift, and Kajillionaire made $305,000, $235,000, and $215,000 (respectively), while rereleases of Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic On The Basis Of Sex and documentary RBG made $55,000 and $34,000 (respectively) from people who, apparently, wanted to honor the life of an iconic, groundbreaking woman but didn’t care so much about contracting and/or spreading the coronavirus. RBG is on Hulu and On The Basis Of Sex is on Showtime. You don’t need to leave the house to see either one.
For more extensive analysis of this weekend’s box office numbers, head over to Box Office Mojo.
16 Comments
Here’s an idea. Don’t write this article anymore. Just filled with snark and bad attitude that is prevalent throughout this sad excuse for an article. I can’t believe you got paid to poop this out. We all know you don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the theater. Got it. You can stop beating that dead horse any day now.
no
We all know you don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the theater. Got it. You can stop beating that dead horse any day now. I too reckon he can stop beating that dead horse any day now, when ‘any day now’ is the day people are not voluntarily putting the health of others at risk by choosing to sit down indoors with strangers for over an hour breathing the same air during a global pandemic to watch a movie!Yes yes social distancing in place, donning masks in theatres (when not scoffing popcorn) etc … but I for one am happy that a pop culture site makes a point at this time of repeatedly saying “You know, pop culture isn’t the most important thing !”Oh, and by the way,I can’t believe you got paid to poop this out.Sounds like a late night show with Billy Eichner screaming at people on the street to swallow stuff for a dollar. (PHRASING!)
“Why, it’s almost like the plan to stubbornly release Tenet in theaters in the middle of a global pandemic that the U.S. doesn’t especially give a shit about containing was a bad idea!”Yeah, when they look back they’re really going to regret making that extra $40 million dollars before releasing it on VOD. They’re going to wish they’d done what Disney did with Mulan, eschewing the free money coming from the theatrical release and only getting the disappointing returns from a VOD release.
Ok, legitimate question: Will this force Nolan to have to justify his next project? This looks like far more of a critical failure than DKR was, and without the financial success of his previous films, it feels like studios would have more of a reason to not bankroll his next feature.However, with Inception and Dark Knight, maybe he’ll become an always bankrolled director with constantly “eh” features, kind of like Zemeckis. Which is honestly kind of sad, because I’d love to see what would happen if Nolan was forced to work on a much lower budget than he’s had recently.
i think he’s got about 5 more big budget flops of runway in him, barring a complete shake-up in the blockbuster film industry, which is possible. this is only his first real miss since 2005.
Sadly you’re probably right. I remember seeing Dunkirk in theaters and thinking this would lead to a far more experimental era, but then impressions of Tenet came in to disprove that. I just want more Dunkirks and Prestiges damnit!
Plus how do you honestly gauge the performance of a movie’s theatrical release right now? The money has been spent on Tenet and there’s no line of sight to a major premiere. Do you sit on something like this for two years waiting for that to happen? I can actually see studios re-releasing movies post-COVID (whatever that means) with fanfare, with campaigns like “you may have enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s latest on the small screen, but it’s time to experience his film the way it was intended…”
If there is a change in the process, I think Warners may seek more oversight in the pre-pro process. Nolan is one of those directors who fancies himself an auteur and a man of many talents, but he’s not a writer, not really. He needs collaborators, and his best scripts were collaborations. And it is apparent that the major failure of Tenet was not in its production or its editing, but in the story itself. And yes, maybe he needs to work on a smaller canvas. I love his use of large format, and I hope he continues to do this, but you don’t always have to have a big, massive production. He could certainly do something smaller in scale and scope, but still keep his penchant for detail and visuals.
The failure of this film will get spun (and somewhat rightfully so) on the pandemic and the shit-show that is 2020. Nolan will get a pass as far as being allowed to make films. However, he might not get to insist on a theatrical run first depending on how the industry looks in the next few years.
I probably phrased that comment wrong, I guess what I more meant is will he have as high of a budget as he’s been able to get recently?
I don’t think Tenet’s disappointment will be held against him budget wise. He at least gets a free pass on it cause of #2020.
Depending on the direction of the industry as a whole, I suspect he will be able to make films at the upper end of whatever the new budget cap ends up being. There are too many unknowns right now to say how the film landscape is going to shape up in the next few years.
He had two movies between this and TDKR and both of them were successes by at least box office metric (as was TDKR). Not sure why this would force Nolan to have to do anything. It’s more likely that COVID-19 continues to destroy the industry as a whole than for Nolan in particular to be going down an M. Night Shyamalan path.
Tenet was the “hail mary” and he test subject for the theater industry during COVID, and Nolan refused to put it on streaming for aesthetic choices. I think he will get the pass on this one from the distributor. Remember most of his movies are produced with him and his wife, so making it is not the issue; it will be distribution. That being said, my guess is that the distributor will want a more streamlined story, and depending on COVID status, may be more amenable to streaming. Nolan is not an unreasonable person, and he has a good brain on him, but he is an artist and has his reasons for making his films theater-friendly/IMAX ready.
I would love to see Tenet in Imax, but I also love my 75 year old mother-in-law sooooo Netflix in 2021 it’ll have to be.
Aw, no review for Infidel? Can’t you make the poor bastard who has to review all the D’Souza documentaries and low budget Christian movies here take one for the team?