Sony 'won't make the mistake' of opening a Tenet-sized film during the pandemic
As Tenet and especially The New Mutants make the case that returning to theaters early while the pandemic still threatens the world isn't great for box-office business, other studios are assessing what that means for their own returns to the big screen. Sony Pictures has already bumped movies like Marvel comic adaptation Morbius and Ghostbusters: Afterlife to 2021, but with a few more films on the docket for the year — and a coronavirus that doesn't look to be handled anytime soon — the studio is trying not to make the errors of its peers.
At least, that's how Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Tony Vinciquerra put it during Bank of America’s 2020 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference. According to The Wrap, Vinciquerra explained that the studio would be playing it far safer than Warner Bros. or Disney when it comes to putting big movies back into theaters.
“What we won’t do is make the mistake of putting a very, very expensive $200 million movie out in the market unless we’re sure that theaters are open and operating at significant capacity,” Vinciquerra said. Now, there's still small movies coming from Sony — including rom-com The Broken Hearts Gallery, which looks to open Sept. 11 — but they're not massive genre films looking to attract big audiences. Granted, even Vinciquerra isn't sure how the strategy will shake out.
So Tenets real domestic weekend grosses
1st weekend: 9.4 million
2nd weekend: 6.7 million (29% drop)
If you look at it that way, its not that disappointing
According to comscore the audience was 64% male and 61% are over 25+ years old. Blade Runner 2049 had a similar audience and ended up as a box office bomb. Tenet needs more young demographics! But we should not forget that NY & California are still not open, it has low drops in international markets (especially in Europe), some important markets are about to open within next weeks (Mexico, Japan, India and Brazil) and there are nearly no blockbuster competitors (until november, as for now). I think 300 million worldwide is safe. 400 million will be though, but still possible. 500 million seems unreachable.
So Tenets real domestic weekend grosses
1st weekend: 9.4 million
2nd weekend: 6.7 million (29% drop)
If you look at it that way, its not that disappointing
According to comscore the audience was 64% male and 61% are over 25+ years old. Blade Runner 2049 had a similar audience and ended up as a box office bomb. Tenet needs more young demographics! But we should not forget that NY & California are still not open, it has low drops in international markets (especially in Europe), some important markets are about to open within next weeks (Mexico, Japan, India and Brazil) and there are nearly no blockbuster competitors (until november, as for now). I think 300 million worldwide is safe. 400 million will be though, but still possible. 500 million seems unreachable.
Is Tenet the scapegoat of 2020?
Sorry, I'm really sick about american's journalisim.
I think people are sick of it (and Nolan), especially after the quadrillion articles written about the film. Human nature to want the to see the "big guy(s)" fail.
I saw a lot of the same with Tarantino last year. Just consider how much vitriol and shit you see written about popular athletes and artists (hello Coldplay and U2) and it makes sense that more people want to see Nolan take a stumble here. I am 100% guilty of doing that with super-talented artists I don't particularly like (Kanye West). We all do it! Remember "chair-gate" a few months ago? Nolan is a star and that is a consequence of fame in 2020.
It's just not cool to love something (or someone) populist. What you like and dislike is personal branding. With SoMe that aspect has become extremely evident in film criticism.
But history is no different, really. Chaplin was basically thrown out of America, David Lean was mocked so bad by US critics that he flat out stopped making films for years, Hitchcock never got serious artistic cred before age 60, and only after the la nouvelle vague put him on a pedestal. Ridley Scott (82) has still never got a big career achievement award in the US... think about that. That is the price you pay for being popular/mainstream.
History tends to be very kind to these filmmakers though, but as Orson Wells said, "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead".
