Christopher Nolan’s Tenet starring Robert Pattinson still set for release on 17 July 2020

We’ve posted previously that Christopher Nolan is still releasing Tenet on 17 July 2020. According to IndieWire “While the studio has revamped much of its release schedule due to pandemic theater closings, “Tenet” is still locked on its original release date. Nolan accelerated the film’s editing schedule, sending his editors home on March 20 to tie up loose ends. There was never any question of the movie not being finished”.

IndieWire provides its opinion on why it thinks it will open unless theatres are closed. Below are a few excepts, head over to IndieWire to read their full opinion:

No director supports theaters more

Many filmmakers would be happy to have someone else’s film go first post-pandemic; Nolan wants that assignment. Making a stand could elevate him to the role held by Steven Spielberg for decades as the face of his profession as a brand and creative force.

Warner Bros. backs his stance

This is Nolan’s ninth straight film with Warner Bros. (“Interstellar” was a Paramount coproduction). In a changing world, the studio still treasures close ties to top creatives, and no one is more important to them than Nolan. Any studio anxiety would likely by mollified by Nolan’s single-minded passion. Second-guessing is a primal sport in Hollywood, but here they’d likely be secure.

“Tenet” is go big or go home

It is expected to have 70mm, 35mm, IMAX, as well as standard digital presentation. Its thriller/action plot has been kept under wraps, but its time-travel/spy element/war themes as well as its massive location shoots around the world suggest the scope of a film maximized by theatrical experience. Throw in what appears to be a typically epic Nolan story and it ticks all the “wow” boxes that could herald the theaters’ return.

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It could mean an Oscar

Nolan already has the “overdue” factor, and decent reviews plus box-office success are a boost, but saving the industry as well? The script just writes itself.

WarnerMedia update concerning the release of Tenet after the cut

Robert Pattinson Tenet Could be Hollywood’s Canary in a Coal Mine

Now that we are 3 months away from Tenet’s scheduled opening, Scott Mendelson from Forbes talks about how it could be a test case to see how social distancing and the cinema experience may survive COVID-19. Below is an excerpt:

… we are three months away from the opening night (counting Thursday previews) of Chris Nolan’s Tenet. Amid a flurry of date changes, reschedulings and indefinite delays, Warner Bros. has not yet budged with its ambitious and expensive action thriller, keeping the film on the studio’s and the director’s favorite mid-July launch date. This could change at any moment, but for now, John David Washington/Robert Pattinson flick is positioned to be the first major wide theatrical release of the “starting late” summer 2020 season. If this goes through, Tenet could be Hollywood’s canary in the coal mine.

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If audiences are going to go back to theaters, it’ll have to be for something that’s excessively anticipated. Chris Nolan’s original, $200 million time-travelling spy actioner would arguably fit the bill. Nolan has been established as a franchise/brand unto himself, Inception ($830 million in 2010) and Interstellar ($677 million in 2014) and Dunkirk ($527 million in 2017) scored top-tier box office sans brands or, via Dunkirk (a $100 million World War II flick) star power. Not only is it an ideal “you must see this in theaters” offering, but the very thing that makes Tenet even more of a risk in this “new normal” also makes it an ideal guinea pig.

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However, Tenet’s existence as a non-franchise/IP flick means that audiences don’t show up in expected numbers, there’s nothing at stake beyond the singular success of a singular film. There’s no brand to be damaged, or franchise to be undercut like, for example, an under-performing Black Widow or No Time to Die.

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Chris Nolan’s Tenet would make for an ideal test case presuming North America and/or the rest of the world is ready to try and get back into theaters. It’s an extremely anticipated would-be blockbuster that was expected, before the current madness, to be one of the year’s biggest domestic and global grossers. But it’s also a pure original, disconnected with any IP or franchise designs. As such, its success would be an unmitigated win while its potential failure wouldn’t sink an ongoing brand or franchise. We are now three months from the scheduled opening night for Nolan’s time-traveling thriller. Either way, “time runs out” on July 17.

Robert Pattinson Tenet won’t be bound for Cannes

Robert Pattinson’s Tenet was hotly gossiped about being the first Christopher Nolan film to premiere at Cannes. As it stands, that’s all it could have been – gossip. Cannes originally postponed from May to hopefully start at the end of June beginning of July 2020, but Cannes have now acknowledged that that postponement is no longer an option. This is what The Hollywood Reporter had to say:

The further postponement of the 2020 Cannes International Film Festival leaves some of this year’s most hotly anticipated studio and independent films in limbo. Features that were expected to make their world premiere on the Cannes Croisette — including Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta and Pixar’s animated feature Soul â€” may now have to find another red carpet opportunity or skip the festival circuit altogether. 

Cannes occupies a central position in the calendar for tentpole titles, which use the festival’s glitz and glamor, as well as its convenient congregation of international film journalists, to kick off press junkets and global rollouts. For independent films, a Cannes premiere can be a make-or-break moment, a key launchpad for movies that otherwise would never get noticed, much less released.

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Tenet

Christopher Nolan hasn’t brought a single film to Cannes (he attended in 2018 to introduce a new 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey), so beyond gossip, it’s unknown whether his latest would have even been in contention. But with Tenet’s summer release date of July 17, had Warner Bros. opted for a festival bow, Cannes would have been the logical choice, making it one of the festival’s marquee premieres. Little is known about the project, save for its all-star cast of Robert Pattinson, John David Washington, Kenneth Branagh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Debicki and — of course — Michael Caine, and a plot about a time-traveling secret agent tasked with preventing World War III. Tenet will likely have a typically Nolan out-of-festival debut.

Robert Pattinson Tenet still in editing and Indiewire hopes for Cannes Premiere

UPDATED: 27 March 2020

Scott Mendelsohn from Forbes had this to say on why Tenet is still slated for July 2020 release:

Most of the big June, July and August releases have yet to move, partially out of hopes that they won’t have to.

We got word yesterday that Warner Bros. was delaying nearly its entire summer movie slate. …

Oddly enough, Chris Nolan’s $200 million sci-fi actioner Tenet, starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, has thus far maintained its intended July 17 opening weekend. It is one of a handful of potentially “big” movies that has yet to vacate its planned theatrical release date, arguably because it’s hoping that it won’t have to.

UPDATED: 25 March 2020

Warner Bros is pushing ahead with 17 July 2020 release of Tenet according to Deadline:

Warner Bros is pushing its forthcoming summer theatrical releases until the coronavirus crisis calms down and exhibition makes a full-steam comeback.

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Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet will stay firm on July 17 in anticipation the global theatrical marketplace will be well by then.

Robert Pattinson talks Dior, Tenet and Batman with GQ Italia

I feel like bits of this interview are quotes from other interviews we have seen and read recently. Especially the comment “When you’re a tall Englishman, everyone ends up imagining you perfect in nineteenth-century costume dramas”. Some of it seems awfully familiar. The photos however are new! Below is an extract, but head over to GQItalia to read the full article:

Since 2013 Pattinson has also been the face of Dior Homme . The new campaign will be released in the spring, complete with a promotional film directed by the French duo The Blaze.  “I’m glad the dance scene is shown in slow motion,” he admits. “At normal speed it would be much more ridiculous. I’m certainly not the type who goes to the disco alone and starts dancing. “ The video recalls the atmospheres of his favorite films and in which Pattinson plays a model of modern man, far from machist stereotypes, vulnerable and fragile. And the theme offers a starting point for reasoning.

Being a man is a progression. “I think in 2020 he finds himself straddling traditional elements – in which the male is quite strong and determined and does whatever he wants – and a deep sensuality. I believe that being a man today means being more things together, including aggression and vulnerability. And also the freedom to take an interest in fabrics and perfumes, why not.”

Of his style he says that in the last six years he has changed a lot, because he has lost his shyness and today he dares much more. “Now I feel I am a bit more avant-garde. Working with Dior makes you feel protected, because being associated with a timeless brand gives you security. When you then have the opportunity to make the fitting with the designer in person, you feel much more aware of what you are choosing to wear. So yes, in general I feel I have become a little more experimental over the years. I love everything that Kim Jones draws, even if alone I might never have chosen the tuxedo with basketball shorts (look he wore at the 2018 New York Film Festival, ed.). Satin, chiffon… I love these fabrics, even though I have a tendency to always wear a little the same things in everyday life”.

Photographer: Mikael Jansson

via @ZazoomNews

Robert Pattinson King of Clickbait calls Twilight AN “Arthouse movie”

Nicholas Barber of BBC Culture spoke with Rob about his career on the eve of The Lighthouse being released in the UK. Below is an extract, but you can read the full interview by clicking on the link above:

“I literally started this year with no job,” he says, referring to 2019. “I remember my agent saying, ‘You’re not really on anybody’s list. The movies are well reviewed, but they aren’t big hits.’ And then a week later I got another call out of the blue: ‘Do you want to be in a Chris Nolan movie?’ I was like: ‘Wait – how did that happen?

As well as featuring in Christopher Nolan’s time-twisting thriller, Tenet, which is released in July, Pattinson is squeezing into the bat suit vacated by Ben Affleck to star in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. But he maintains that he is not plunging into the Hollywood mainstream. Nolan, he argues, is an indie auteur who just happens to have colossal budgets at his disposal, and Batman is one of the “crazy and perverse” characters he usually plays. “Out of all the big roles that I knew of in that kind of realm,” he muses, “there was just something about this one.”

Maybe Pattinson can teach us all a lesson about having the courage of our convictions. By sticking to his own niche taste in films, he gets to be one of the saviours of arthouse cinema – and yet he gets to flirt with blockbusters and be the saviour of Gotham City, too. Who else has a career like his? The only actor who springs to mind, strangely enough, is Pattinson’s Twilight co-star and ex-girlfriend, Kristen Stewart. He grins so widely at this comparison that his eyes crinkle up and disappear. “That’s because no one realised that Twilight was an arthouse movie. It’s part of the same thing. In a few years, people will suddenly realise – ah, it was arthouse! I totally missed it!”