On Friday, Warner Bros. dropped a bombshell announcement: it’s moving the release date for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet by two weeks – from July 17 to July 31. Soon afterward, the studio revealed it would be changing the release date of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 as well – from August 14 to October 2.
Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. However, 2020 isn’t an ordinary year.
When the first shutdowns began back in March, major Hollywood studios scrambled to change release dates of all of their big-budget films. Executives were aware there’s a good chance movie theatres won’t reopen by summer and even if they did, that people might be understandably reluctant about returning to cinemas. In this climate, Tenet inadvertently became saddled with enormous expectations from both the studios and movie theatre chains as a blockbuster that will somehow single-handedly save the summer season.
But, honestly, that was never going to happen, not with the way pandemic continues to spread across the US. It’s already apparent that the decision to push Tenet back will cause a ripple effect as other studios once again start reshuffling release dates. Even worse, it signals a grim future for the US movie theatre chains left without audiences and new films.
