| Title | Weekend Gross | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tenet | $20,200,000 |
| 2 | The New Mutants | $2,870,000 |
| 3 | Unhinged | $1,670,000 |
| 4 | The Personal History of David Copperfield |
$361,000 |
| 5 | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run |
$345,000 |
| 6 | Words on Bathroom Walls | $282,370 |
| 7 | My Brothers’ Crossing | $17,350 |
Tenet has arrived, my friends. Praise the lord, hallelujah and God bless America, Tenet is finally here.
I don’t need to tell you that a lot has been riding on Tenet. After months of shuttered theaters due to the coronavirus pandemic, Christopher Nolan’s complicated time-inversion thriller was set to save cinemas. It was going to be the movie that brought people back to the movies, where it was safe of course. Warner Bros, Mr. Nolan and all of Hollywood were heralding Tenet as the blockbuster that would breathe life into the hurting movie industry.
So, how did Tenet do in its first weekend at the North American box office? Was it the Christ-like savior many had hoped for? Did it give AMC, Regal and other chains the boost they needed? Or did it sputter limply to the top of the charts?
It did…pretty well, actually. Tenet took in $20,200,000, more than enough to claim the top spot at the box office. Now, under other circumstances $20 million would be an alarming debut for a Christopher Nolan film, it would be shockingly low and would cause a heart attack or two at Warner Bros. But, under these COVID-19 circumstances, $20 million is a refreshing total. Remember, all theaters are observing social distancing protocols and only 65-70% of multiplexes are currently open. Major markets like New York, LA, San Francisco and others are still closed too, meaning Tenet isn’t even playing in America’s most-popular cities. All in all, the movie is doing well with the hand it’s been dealt.
It’s impossible to tell but Tenet’s premiere weekend feels like a typical Nolan opening. If all the theaters in North America were fully functioning, I would bet Tenet would be debuting with numbers slightly north of Dunkirk’s $50 million debut. But, like I said, it’s impossible to tell how the movie would do in normal times. We don’t live in normal times and we may not return to them for quite awhile.
Internationally, where things are much more normal in certain countries, Tenet took in another $78.3 million this weekend, bringing its worldwide total to just shy of $150 million ($146.2 mill). Warner Bros has stressed that this is marathon, not a sprint. With little competition and more theaters opening constantly, WB is confident that Nolan’s film will keep chug, chug, chugging along in the weeks ahead. That’s very likely, the next big debut is Wonder Woman 1984, due in October. Until then, Tenet will pretty much rule over theaters. It’s both possible and probable that the movie will gross the $500 million needed to truly turn a profit.
The movie is doing well but it doesn’t feel like the return to normalcy that we had hoped it would be. Things are still very, very weird at theaters. With the coronavirus still raging across the country, movie-going feels somewhat alien and even dangerous, to say the least. It’s nice to see Tenet has finally arrived and it’s encouraging that it’s doing well but I guess I had hyped it up in my mind over the last few months; the arrival of Tenet was going to be the re-arrival of stability and life as it was. When Tenet arrives, I told myself, things will be back to the way they were! As if a movie had the power to beat back a virus and adjust the thinking of ignorant people and a dangerously clueless president. Alas, Tenet is here and things are still bleak.
Hey, speaking of bleak: The New Mutants fell to number two this weekend, mustering up $2.87 million. That’s a 59% drop from last weekend which is definitely not good. But you can be sure Disney will ultimately blame the low gross for Mutants on the pandemic and not its quality. Elsewhere, Unhinged, The Personal History of David Copperfield and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run all hung in there. No word on how Mulan did on Disney+. You can be sure that Disney will reveal those numbers soon because they want to showcase profit right now, especially with all their theme parks closed. It did debut strong in markets without Disney+: Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia and others. Still, theaters across the globe are hurting tremendously, even in areas where cinemas are at full capacity. People are scared of going to the movies.
Next weekend brings us…well, nothing. Like I said, Wonder Woman 1984 is the next major debut and that’s not for a few weeks. Expect Tenet to remain the biggest grosser in the weeks ahead. Maybe by the time Wonder Woman debuts next month, that sense of normalcy that we’ve all been hoping for will have returned. I wouldn’t hold my breath though. We are going to remain in this uncharted territory for some time.