Chris Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Gets New Trailer But Keeps Old Release Date

As promised last night during a surprise TV spot that ran during an episode of Fox’s The Masked Singer, we now have our second trailer for Tenet. I’d say “theatrical trailer,” but unless this thing runs attached to prints of Solstice Studios’ Unhinged (presuming that Russell Crowe thriller opens as scheduled on July 1), I’d not sure how many folks will actually see this “theatrical trailer” in theaters. Yes, the trailer actually dropped in Fortnite, which very much sounds like Chris Nolan taking the whole “big screen debut” concept a bit… humorously. The trailer is just that, a bit more plot, a few more action beats (even if much of the third-act action montage seems to come from the IMAX prologue) and assurances that the film will have a sense of humor about itself.

As teased by the aforementioned TV spot, this second trailer is using the film’s odd title (which itself is a palindrome) as a selling point, implying that the word actual figures into the plot. We get pretty explicit confirmation that, yes, this $200 million sci-fi action/espionage movie will indeed involve time travel. Had life not been upended in March, we’d likely already have had a “yes, this is a time travel movie” trailer months ago. Heck, this may have just been the theatrical trailer that would have debuted today anyway, with the intention of being attached to F9 had that Fast & Furious sequel opened in theaters tonight as planned. Or maybe this was the second trailer that would have played in April with No Time to Die with a third dropping with Marvel’s Black Widow, F9 or DC Films’ Wonder Woman 1984.

We actually got a few cryptic teasers for Inception ten years ago before we got the much-copied “Okay, here’s how the movie will play out” theatrical trailer on May 10, 2010. Ditto Interstellar which had four theatrical trailers prior to release, previews that, not unlike Tomorrowland six months later, would give the illusion of secrecy while essentially giving away much of the broad storytelling strokes. To be fair, that obviously worked as the outer-space adventure earned $189 million domestic and $677 million worldwide in late 2014. Moreover, I would argue that the campaign for The Dark Knight Rises (especially if you don’t count that weird last-minute Nokia tie-in preview) was as spoiler-free a campaign for a major tentpole movie as I can remember, give or take Disney’s last two Star Wars sequels.

The “attached to The Avengers” trailer remains my favorite Batman preview ever, which is saying something. Anyway, I’m stalling because the big news is that the trailer contains no explicit release date, but Warner Bros.’ YouTube’s page still claims that the film will open on July 17. 2020. The hope was that Chris Nolan’s action spectacular, which stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki, will still kick off the delayed 2020 summer movie season in high style, with the presumption that social distancing measures at movie theaters (checkered seating, masks, wellness checks at the box office, etc.) would lead to a lower opening weekend but longer legs for the presumably buzzy blockbuster.

While the trailer gave no firm answer to that $200 million question, the cryptic “coming to theaters” text offers neither a committal nor a denial. Ironically, it’s likely the social distancing measures remaining in place in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, which can make up as much as 25% of a film’s opening weekend, that led to this change. The rest of the world is slowly opening back up and at least some U.S. states, for better or worse, are easing restrictions. But you can’t have a global blockbuster without playing in North America and you can’t have a domestic smash without playing in Los Angeles and New York.

As much as Chris Nolan wants to be the guy who swoops in to save Hollywood’s theatrical moviegoing infrastructure, he’d also rather not be the guy whose huge movie bombed because audiences didn’t feel safe going to a theater and/or the guy tagged as indirectly responsible for a nationwide outbreak. Ditto the folks currently slotting Disney’s Mulan for July 24 and Paramount’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run for August 7.

If Tenet moves, presumably to Wonder Woman 1984’s current August 14 slot, I expect another deluge of date changes after this afternoon. That would mean that Wonder Woman 1984 would move to October 2 or December 18, with Dune being tossed to 2021, since I’d imagine Patty Jenkins would be more willing to share IMAX screens over Christmas with Joseph Kosinski’s “shot with IMAX-certified digital cameras” Top Gun: Maverick when Paramount’s Tom Cruise sequel opens on December 23. Nonetheless, that’s up in the air tonight. Tenet looks great, and it’s still coming to theaters. The question, fittingly enough, is “When?”