Box Office: Chris Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Nabs Strong $53 Million Overseas Debut

Chris Nolan’s Tenet is off to a very solid start, topping all 41 overseas territories in which it opens, provided it indeed gets the post-opening legs that Warner Bros. is banking upon for global box office success.

In normal times, a $53 million overseas launch (including $5 million in IMAX) for a film as big as Chris Nolan’s Tenet would be, at the very least, somewhat disappointing. The reason it isn’t, especially with the circumstances of its release, is that the film is getting decent word-of-mouth along with thus far positive (82% fresh and an average score of 7.3/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) reviews. This isn’t a case of Disney’s much-delayed and essentially dumped The New Mutants opening in America with $7 million amid horrible reviews and zero buzz. This is a much-anticipated movie from the biggest “butts in seats” director on the planet, complete with buzzy trailers, an entire year’s worth of free media, well-liked if not yet “box office draw” stars like John David Washington and Robert Pattinson and an easy-to-pitch hook (“It’s a globe-trotting spy movie… with time travel!”) to wet the appetite.

Had it debuted as expected worldwide on the week of July 17 sans any coronavirus issues, the John David Washington/Robert Pattinson vehicle would likely have opened with over $50 million domestic and at least (including China) $150 million overseas. The $200 million, original sci-fi Warner Bros. release has been twice delayed, first to July 31 and then to August 12 before settling on its current “August 26 overseas and September 3/4 in America and China” schedule. Whether (if you believe the gossip) Warner Bros. should have pushed back against Chris Nolan’s insistence on a summer play date (and a theaters-only release), Tenet is out in much of the world and the film opened well even with seemingly responsible capacity limitations. Whether it “saves the movie theaters” or merely plays the hero by dying theatrically to give the multiplexes more time to rebound will be determined in the coming weeks.

Warner Bros. is banking on long legs, with audiences presumably checking out the sci-fi actioner in the first, second or third month of its global theatrical release. With The Kings Man fleeing to 2021, Tenet will have the multiplex mostly to itself until Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman 1984 (hopefully) opens on October 2. Tenet opens in much of America, but not (as of this posting) the likes of New York and California, beginning with preview showings on August 31. The official domestic opening day is September 3, meaning it’ll technically be a Thurs-Mon debut over Labor Day weekend. For what it’s worth, the current record for a Fri-Mon Labor Day opening is $30.5 million in 2007 for Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake. A best-case-scenario Fri-Mon domestic prediction (plus whatever it earns prior to that) would see it just barely setting a new Labor Day record.

As a general rule, Nolan’s films are generally quite leggy. The Dark Knight legged out to $533 million domestic from a then-record $158 million domestic debut in 2008, while Inception earned $292 million (still one of the biggest raw domestic totals for a live-action original) in 2010 from a $62 million launch. Interstellar opened with $49 million (including two days of previews for theaters showing it on film) in 2014 and legged out to $188 million domestic. Ditto Dunkirk, a star-free World War II actioner that earned $188 million domestic from a $49 million launch in July of 2017. The example Warner Bros. would prefer to (realistically) follow is The Phantom Menace. The Star Wars prequel was also kept it in the biggest auditoriums (by studio decree) for longer than usual, which helped it leg out to $431 million domestic from a then-record $105 million Wed-Sun launch.

A $25 million-$35 million Thurs-Sun debut and a 4.1x multiplier (for a $103 million-$143 million domestic cume) wouldn’t be awful (under the circumstances) if it performed likewise globally. A $53 million overseas launch (pre-release projections were around $40 million), with China still left in the bag, is a promising start. Inception opened with $15 million in its overseas opening (as it opened with $62.5 million domestic) and expanded around the world over the next three weeks. Interstellar earned $82.9 million in its initial overseas launch, opening in 62 territories right off the bat. It opened around the world, including North America, over the week of November 5, followed by China on November 12, Japan on November 22 and Venezuela on December 5. The Matthew McConaughey/Anne Hathaway/Jessica Chastain vehicle would earn $2 million in Venezuela, $10 million in Japan and $122 million in China, a near-record for a Hollywood flick at the time.

China is considered a key territory since Nolan’s non-Batman movies (Inception, Interstellar and Dunkirk) have been huge hits. Playing spitball math, a current $53 million overseas launch, a $30 million Thurs-Mon American debut, a $55 million opening weekend in China and $27 million in the territories (including Japan) set to open between September 10 and September 24, that’s essentially a global debut of around $170 million. Even 3.5x would be a face-saving $595 million worldwide. A 3.5x multiplier would be unusually high in normal circumstances (and won’t happen in China), but A) it’s going to have theaters almost all to itself in many markets for at least a month and B) its American prospects will improve if California and New York open their theaters over the next month or so. We’ll know in a month if Tenet saved theaters or died trying, but this is a very good start.