Director Christopher Nolan's long awaited film Tenet will be getting a theatrical summer release across 70 international territories, including Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom on Aug. 26 with a U.S.release scheduled for Sept 3.
One of the most anticipated movies of the year, Tenet had already experienced several delays to its theatrical release, slipping from its original date of July 17, due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing movie theaters to remain closed thanks to social distancing restrictions.
Conceived by Christopher Nolan over 20 years, Tenet is a futuristic spy thriller starring John David Washington, son of acclaimed actor Denzel Washington, as lead character Protagonist. Very few plot details are known with story details being a closely guarded secret but the film apparently not time travel but 'inversion'. It's worth noting that the title Tenet is a palindrome, a word which can be read the same both backwards and forwards, which could be a clue to its central theme. According to Nolan, the script for this iteration of Tenet took around 6-7 years to write.
Originally slated to release on July 17, Tenet suffered several delays to its theatrical release as the pandemic lockdown kept movie theaters shuttered. Although several big summer films have already bypassed the cinemas to go straight to video on demand (VOD), Warner Bros insisted on a theatrical release, denying that Tenet would be premiering on HBO Max.
Tenet, with a budget in excess of $200 million, filmed across 7 countries on 70MM with a cast including Michael Caine and future Batman Robert Pattinson. It's a major release for Warner Bros, which is presumably the reason for the dogged insistence that it release in cinemas. The movie has a separate obstacle to releasing in China the second biggest cinema market, where theaters are still currently restricted from showing films over 2 hours in length. Tenet currently clocks in at 2 hours, 30 minutes, so an edit that could work for China is possible, if not ideal.
Tenet will be released in International markets on the 26th August and the U.S. on the 2nd September.
Source: Variety