Christopher Nolan is reuniting with Warner Bros. for a theatrical re-release of his time-hopping 2020 sci-fi film “Tenet.”
It will return to movie theaters — on 70mm Imax, Imax, digital and 70mm film screens — for one week only, starting Feb. 23. The screenings, held across the U.S. and in select international markets, will be accompanied by exclusive footage of “Dune: Part Two,” which debuts a week later, on March 1. Tickets for “Tenet” are on sale now.
Nolan said in a statement, “Seeing the way audiences responded to our large format presentations of ‘Oppenheimer,’ I’m thrilled that Warner Bros. is giving audiences a chance to see ‘Tenet’ the way it was intended to be seen, on the largest Imax and large format film screens, and I’m honored to have our movie warm up the film projectors for Denis [Villenueve]’s jaw-dropping ‘Dune: Part Two.’”
Starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki, “Tenet” follows an ex-CIA agent who is tasked with investigating mysterious, time-traveling objects linked to an attack from the future to the present.
Villeneuve added, “As an audience member, I have always valued Chris’s forward thinking when it comes to shooting on film and especially in large formats. As directors, we are completely in sync; on ‘Dune,’ we shot several sequences for Imax, and I simply loved it, so for ‘Dune: Part Two,’ we pushed it to 100% of the movie. Working with the Imax format was the only way to capture the experience of Arrakis, Giedi Prime and the Imperium for audiences. That is why I am just as eager to see ‘Tenet’ again, but now in 70mm Imax, the way they filmed it, to fully appreciate his vision for this incredible film.”
During the pandemic, “Tenet” underwhelmed at the box office with $365 million and failed to break even. Though “Tenet” debuted in theaters, Nolan publicly condemned Warner Bros., then led by former CEO Jason Kilar, and split from the studio that produced and distributed his films for nearly two decades when it announced it would dump its entire 2021 film slate on HBO Max with no exclusive theatrical window.
Nolan said at the time that he was in “disbelief” over Warners’ hybrid, day-and-date distribution strategy, which saw “big-screen experiences … being used as a loss-leader for the streaming service … without any consultation.” The director stated in another interview, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
It was for that reason Nolan took his atomic bomb epic “Oppenheimer” to Universal, which released the film to the tune of more than $950 million.
However, Nolan told Variety in a recent cover story that his feud with Warner Bros. is now “water under the bridge,” and that he would “absolutely” work with the studio again, which is now under the leadership of CEO David Zaslav and Film Group co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. Variety reported last year that, in a sign of healing between the director and studio, Nolan did post-production work on “Oppenheimer” on the Warners lot. De Luca flatly told Variety, “We’re hoping to get Nolan back.”
The InSneider first reported news of “Tenet” returning to theaters.