Weekend Predictions: Tenet Set to Tame a Chaotic Box Office

September 2, 2020

Tenet

The chaos that is 2020 continues this long weekend. Usually Labor Day marks the official end of the summer blockbuster season, but in 2020 up is down, left is right, and the Canucks still haven’t been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs. With all of this turmoil, it kind of makes sense that the first summer blockbuster getting released this year, Tenet, is coming out on the last weekend of summer. It is the only wide release of the week, and, while The New Mutants and Unhinged will still be in many theaters, they simply won’t be able to compete with Christopher Nolan’s latest epic.

Unfortunately, Tenet can’t really compete with Christopher Nolan’s most successful previous releases in terms of quality or box office potential. So far the film’s critical reception is closer to Interstellar than Inception. To be fair, this still puts it well above the average summer blockbuster, but the hype for this film was loud enough that even these reviews are seen as a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully this won’t negatively affect the film’s box office numbers. At the low end, predictions are hovering around a total opening of $25 million, which would include its Monday to Wednesday “Early Access” screenings, and the five-day long weekend. High-end predictions put the opening at about $35 million just from Friday through Sunday. If the film matches the high end, that might open the floodgates for other studios to put larger films back on release schedule. On the other hand, if the film fails to match the low end, then any studios with a streaming service (which, in one way or another, is most of them at this point) will increase their focus on those outlets. I think the film will earn a total opening of $35 million, including the Early Access shows, but it will have long legs, as there’s no strong competition for the rest of the month.

The New Mutants started out really well last Friday with a $3.1-million opening day, but collapsed as the weekend wore on, to post a $7 million Friday–Sunday total. There’s enough of a crossover with Tenet’s audience that Mutants could get buried this weekend. I would be surprised if it avoids a 50% drop-off, while a 70% decline isn’t out of the question. I’m going with $3 million over the weekend, which is still not a terrible result given the film’s troubled history and the pandemic. The film will lose money, but that was going to happen no matter what.

Unhinged will be the only other film to earn more than $1 million over the weekend and will likely finish closer to $1 million than $2 million. It did hold on well last weekend, down just 35% to $2.6 million, but it was also saw significant growth in its theater count. That’s not going to happen this weekend. That said, even if the film only manages $1 million, its total will pass $10 million, which should be seen as a success, given everything that theaters are dealing with right now.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Inception, The New Mutants, Tenet, Unhinged, Christopher Nolan