Christopher Nolan’s new thriller Tenet is leading the post-coronavirus box office comeback with a $53 million theatrical launch.
The Warner Bros. release, starring Robert Pattinson, John David Washington, and Elizabeth Debicki opened in 41 markets outside North America last weekend (August 28-30, 2020), scoring its strongest start in the U.K., where it banked $7.1 million.
Praising the impressive opening as “a fantastic start”, studio chairman Toby Emmerich stated: “Given the unprecedented circumstances of this global release we know we’re running a marathon, not a sprint, and look forward to long playability for this film globally for many weeks to come.”
Tenet is still yet to open in the two largest markets of China and the U.S., where it will launch TODAY, September 3rd, in time for America’s Labor Day bank holiday weekend.
U.S. theatre-goers instead flocked to check out the long-delayed X-Men spin-off The New Mutants, which grossed $7 million – the biggest opening for any new film since the COVID-19 shutdown, even though it was panned by critics and cinemas remained shuttered in a number of states, including California and New York.
Keanu Reeves’ Bill & Ted Face the Music was another new release, debuting on both video-on-demand and in select theatres, where it made just under $1.1 million, as was The Personal History David Copperfield, a Charles Dickens adaptation starring Dev Patel, which opened with $520,000 from 1,360 theatres.
