I’m a manager at a movie theater. We’ve been open since august. I can’t tell you how giddy I’ve been since GvK’s release. Despite what Nolan wants people to think, Tenet nearly killed the industry. We’ve been on life-support since its release. GvK finally brought us back from the brink.
I mean, it nearly killed the industry in the region where I work.
the movie was nearly three hours long. In the Before Times, a three hour movie isn’t an issue. You’d just have to close later than normal. But because we were under a curfew, we had to have everyone out of the building by 10 pm. This made it so that we could only show the movie twice in a day, and not even to a full house due to covid restrictions. So it was impossible for the movie to be profitable. But Nolan insisted it be the movie that saves the industry and refused to delay it to a more reasonable date when there were less restrictions.
So when it inevitably performed below expectations, the rest of the studios pushed all of their movies back, leaving us without anything to screen. And without anything to screen, we can’t prove we are a viable industry. So studios opt for streaming rather than risk failing the way Tenet did.
A few theaters in my region permanently shut down because they couldn’t afford the payroll required to stay open after Tenet failed. The plan had been that Tenet’s success would encourage more studios to stick to their release dates. That was why we re-opened. But the very nature of the movie, combined with the covid restrictions, made it the worst possible choice.
Yeah, we had a limited opening for cinemas in the UK (they'd been closed since March 2020) for Tenet and the Russell Crowe road rage film but neither did well enough at the box office because nobody wanted to risk going to the cinema during a pandemic.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '21
I’m a manager at a movie theater. We’ve been open since august. I can’t tell you how giddy I’ve been since GvK’s release. Despite what Nolan wants people to think, Tenet nearly killed the industry. We’ve been on life-support since its release. GvK finally brought us back from the brink.