'Tenet' Pushed, as the Summer Blockbuster Window Continues to Narrow

By Dustin Rowles | Film | June 13, 2020 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | June 13, 2020 |

Christopher Nolan has professed to wanting his movie, Tenet, to be the one that brings audiences back to movie theaters this summer amid a Coronavirus pandemic. That may still happen, but if it does, it will be on July 31st, instead of July 17th, as Warner Brothers has pushed the release date back two weeks. That means that Mulan — on July 24th — is the first blockbuster on the schedule, although that may change, as well.

In fact, Wonder Woman — scheduled for mid-August — has also blinked, and it has been bumped to October, while the Matrix 4 has been bumped from May 2021 to April 2022 over production delays.

Meanwhile, two smaller movies still on the July schedule — Unhinged starring Russell Crowe and our pal Jimmi Simpson — and a rom-com called Broken Hearts Gallery — will open in theaters on July 10th, and we will find out how many theaters will be ready, and how much business those films will draw in.

The August schedule, meanwhile, looks like it’s fallen into tatters, as well. There’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, The Personal History of David Copperfield, the Lionsgate horror flick Antebellum, Bill and Ted Face the Music, and, er, The New Mutants. In other words, if Tenet and Mulan blink, the “summer movie season” may start over Labor Day with A Quiet Place II.

All of this, of course, depends on how the coronavirus plays out over the course of the summer, whether infection rates drop, and/or how much the populace is willing to ignore the reality of 1,000 people dying a day.