Last night, Warner Bros. dropped the latest trailer for their big Christopher Nolan tentpole film Tenet starring John David Washington and future Batman, Robert Pattinson.
Armed with only one word—Tenet—and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real-time.
Not time travel. Inversion.
The international cast of “Tenet” also includes Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, with Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.
Nolan wrote and directed the film, utilizing a mixture of IMAX® and 70mm film to bring the story to the screen. “Tenet” is produced by Emma Thomas and Nolan. Thomas Hayslip served as executive producer.
Nolan’s behind-the-scenes creative team included director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema, production designer Nathan Crowley, editor Jennifer Lame, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson, and special effects supervisor Scott Fisher. The score is composed by Ludwig Göransson. “Tenet” was filmed on location across seven countries.
Interestingly enough, the trailer fails to mention a release date instead they simply state “coming to theaters”. This could signal they are adamant the film is coming to theaters (not to streaming or PVOD/VOD) but haven’t exactly figured out when it will. They also didn’t mention the summer or 2020, which is odd.
According to the official Twitter account, YouTube trailer post, and website the film is still heading to theaters on July 17th. However, neither the new television spot or the trailer mentions a release date. Which is extremely fishy considering how expensive television spots are and normally this close to a release date studios don’t hold-back on when the film is coming out when they’re trying to advertise it’s release.
Warner Bros. could certainly continue being stubborn as a mule and stick to their July release date embracing a weak box office they’d likely get from such a misguided attempt to save the summer movie season. More than likely they would be just contributing to a second wave/spread of the virus within theaters by luring the public with a new release. The virus has yet to truly slow-down in the United States despite multiple states re-opening and some disregarding the federal government guidelines.
I’m hoping that Warner Bros. comes to their senses and just push the film to later date out of concern for the safety of audiences, but that has yet to happen officially. They have at least three other release dates in 2020 to choose from.
Wonder Woman 1984 is set for August 14th and Godzilla vs Kong is coming out on November 20th, both films have been moved around multiple times. That establishes that Warner Bros. is open to the idea of moving films around and have already done so with summer releases already. Dune has a release date of December 18th which might be a good fit for a release on this scale, however, Christopher Nolan is extremely partial to summer release dates for whatever reason and might see the film bumped into the summer of 2021.
I personally won’t be going to any screenings over the summer even if theaters do open as I’m not willing to risk my health or the health of family and friends to see a movie in a theater for the sake of “tradition”. When it clearly isn’t either the safe or smart thing to do at this moment in time.
