Tenet Starts International Rollout with $53 Million Weekend

August 30, 2020

Tenet

Tenet’s long-awaited global rollout finally started this weekend, and the results are good enough for Warner Bros. to claim victory. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi action movie opened with $53 million in total, including $7.1 million the United Kingdom (with a 74% market share), $6.7 million in France (68% market share), $5.1 million in Korea (80% share), and $4.2 million in Germany (60% share). While those numbers aren’t massive by historical standards in those bigger markets, the film actually set some all-time records in smaller territories.

The film had the biggest-ever opening for a Christopher Nolan film in nine countries, including Holland, Ukraine, and Hungary. It set an all-time record for the biggest opening in Saudi Arabia, with $1.47 million from 131 screens. Its opening in Estonia (where the film was partially shot) was the second-best ever in the country, with $340,000 for the weekend.

IMAX theaters accounted for $5 million in earnings, spread across nearly 250 screens in 38 territories.

Perhaps most impressively, Tenet is performing at levels close to some of Nolan’s previous outings. Dunkirk debuted with $55.4 million from 46 markets in 2017. Interstellar blasted off with a $82.9 million weekend in 62 markets in 2014. The Dark Knight Rises earned a massive $88 million in just 17 markets in 2012. Inception rolled out more slowly in 2010, with $15.9 million from 10 markets on its first weekend, followed by $56.8 million from 36 markets in its second outing.

Performing at close to the level of Dunkirk and Inception is, given the current circumstances, a remarkable achievement. Warner Bros. isn’t making quite the money it once hoped for, but these are very respectable numbers.

Also on the international scene, Little Women started out with a very respectable $4.7 million in China, taking its global total to $216.6 million, and Pade no hay más que uno 2 became the highest-grossing film of the year in Spain, with a $700,000 fifth weekend taking it to $11.7 million in total.

Filed under: International Box Office, Inception, Little Women, Tenet, Padre no hay más que uno 2: La llegada de la suegra, Christopher Nolan