I was really looking forward to Tenet. One of the standout things about this pandemic for me is that it took my movie theater experience away. Movies are not just an escape for me but also a way of re-engineering some creative inspo. I am a fully immersed and emotional viewer. A good film can impact me very deeply and have some serious long term effects. I typically like to go alone and find that other people’s insight and comments throw me off from the solitary realizations I need to have.
Christopher Nolan’s movies are worldwide events and not to be trifled with. I’m not an extreme super fan of the Super hero stuff like the rest of them—but Inception is one of my favorite movies and Tenet gave me that tease.
Tenet stars John David Washington (Denzel Washington’s hot thespian offspring) alongside Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine and some noteworthy others. I actually like Robert Pattinson as a grown actor and removed from the vampires and all that mess.
From the trailer Tenet looked stylish, cerebral, action packed and centered around John David Washington and bad guys and time travel type shit. Listen, I don’t exactly know what the plot it is. I mean....... do you? I reckon that mystery is what Nolan was gunning for. Plus, it’s a Black action star in a mega budget film. Will Smith is the only Black man I’ve ever seen occupy this space! So we good just on the strength of that!
The teaser trailer was released pre COVID and had everyone buzzing and ready. We were told July. At the time we all believed that. Even when COVID later showed up, we still believed that the heavens would atleast grant us this square. We had been through enough and were under the false notion that somehow Summer time would come around and this crazy pandemic would throw in the towel. But No. Our country is still divided and at odds about how to even manage this health crises and theaters worldwide would that were open would have to social distance.
That leads us to the greatest gag of them all............ that over the top budget! The studios spent an estimated 200M+ on this movie and require 800M to break even altogether. Given the hype and the energy they put in I figure that would be cake to recoup. Afterall everybody and they mama was fixin to go see this.
Then, next I heard August. That immediately seemed kinda bold to me! My first thought was, maybe ya’ll need to talk to a few mayors and governors before you start deciding shit like this.
Before you knew it, shit got too real and they basically told us that it would come out eventually. Warner Bros has taken the film off their release calendar, with no confirmed date, though studio chair Toby Emmerich says a date will be announced “imminently”. I still don’t know how they are going to do that. If push comes to shove it will have to go the Home Video route so it won’t miss out on that summer release window.
But even worse than this was the Candyman remake delay! The orginal is a favorite of mine and I have long since decided that if I was to be reincarnated as a horror movie villain of my choice, it would be Candyman. They are still at September for that release. Fingers are crossed! I could actually see a September Home Video still being a cool worthwhile experience for that movie.
All this leads me to some new troubling thoughts. Are we ever going to get the fucking movies back? I feel like even if we were to enter the clear at some point, my governor Andrew Cuomo would do some extra due diligence so we aren’t at risk of looking like Florida. Cuomo dont play that and I’m very grateful that he doesn’t.
Is COVID going to impact movie budgets going forth? Are directors going to defer to shoe string budgets now to make sure conundrums like this don’t happen again? We see Netflix with crazy budgets for home viewing but there’s more assurance with those gambles.
I lost something special and important to me by not having that movie theater outlet.
And it hurts.
