It was inevitable, but Warner Bros. has finally removed Tenet from its Aug. 12 release date to an unknown date in the future.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to keep movie theaters closed in large portions of the United States, Warner Bros. has made the decision everyone was waiting for. Christopher Nolan’s Tenet has been removed from the film release schedule completely. Additionally, The Conjuring 3 was moved from Sept. 11 to June 4, 2021.
“Our goals throughout this process have been to ensure the highest odds of success for our films while also being ready to support our theater partners with new content as soon as they could safely reopen,” said Toby Emmerich, Chairman, Warner Bros. Pictures Group in a statement Monday morning. “We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from exhibitors and remain steadfast in our commitment to the theatrical experience around the world. Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to proliferate, causing us to reevaluate our release dates. Amidst all this continued uncertainty, we have decided to vacate the current dates for our next two releases. We will share a new 2020 release date imminently for Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s wholly original and mind-blowing feature. We are not treating Tenet like a traditional global day-and-date release, and our upcoming marketing and distribution plans will reflect that. Additionally, we will be moving the next installment from our most-successful horror franchise, The Conjuring 3, to June 4, 2021.”
The current theories as to what an unconventional release schedule could look like means that Tenet will more than likely go to foreign theaters first before the U.S. Foreign theaters are clamoring for new content as a large percentage of them have reopened. The issue is if it goes too wide in an international release first, the likelihood of piracy will increase significantly.
Warner Bros. will need to try to find a balance that makes the most sense to protect the film, and that is more than likely going to take some time.
