The current health crisis majorly disrupted the movie theater business earlier this year, resulting in nearly all traditional cineplexes shuttering their doors for several months. Now theaters are starting to open back up in various regions across the country, and luckily for Tenet, which finally kicked off its U.S. big screen run last week, Orange County, California one of those regions.
That’s right, those of you in the general Los Angeles metropolitan area in or near Orange County are now free watch Tenet or another movie playing in theaters, provided you plan ahead of time. As reported by Deadline, Orange County has moved from the purple to red tier on California’s coronavirus monitoring system. That means movie theaters, restaurants and churches can reopen at 25% indoor capacity. Shopping centers in Orange County are now also free to expand from 25% capacity to 50% capacity.
Whether major theater chains AMC, Regal and Cinemark will reopen their locations in Orange County this weekend remains to be seen. However, the former two, as well as Cinepolis, got their theaters running in San Diego less than a week after that city’s reopening order, so it wouldn’t be surprising if a similar plan was followed for Orange County. Still, we’re not out of the woods yet with this pandemic, so it’s important to keep exercising caution when going out, especially if you’re in the mood for the theatrical experience.
Had 2020 gone as planned, Tenet would have opened on July 17, but by June, approximately three months after movies started being postponed due to COVID-19, Warner Bros decided to shift Christopher Nolan’s latest feature to July 31. A little under two weeks later, WB moved Tenet again to August 12, and by the end of July, the studio landed on the final release model: opening in 70 international countries starting August 26, followed by a gradual U.S. rollout starting September 3, though that was preceded by three days of preview screenings and a first-weekend start in Canada.
Thus far, Tenet has made over $152 million worldwide, but considering how expensive it was to make the movie (it had a reported $200 million budget), it still has a long way to go before it can be considered a box office success. Critically speaking, Tenet has been met with a decent amount of positive reception, ranking at 74% among critics and 78% among audiences on Rotten Tomatoes (although it’s Nolan’s lowest-rated movie on CinemaScore since The Prestige).
Tenet follows a secret agent, played by John David Washington, who must work with his allies to prevent World War III using time inversion. The cast also includes Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Dimple Kapadia and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Be sure to read CinemaBlend’s review of Tenet and look through our 2020 release schedule to learn which movies are expected to play in theaters before the year is over.
