Christopher Nolan's Tenet premiere delayed again and likely to get an international release before the US

Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated new movie Tenet is destined to be one of the marquee movies of a truncated year and Warner Bros. is so anxious about its success it is delaying it again in the US and potentially releasing it overseas first.

The Hollywood Reporter says the $200 million (£158 Million) movie had been delayed for a third time to a 12th August premiere in the US, but the coronavirus pandemic continues to play havoc with cinemas across the States.

Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich said: “Our goals throughout this process have been to ensure the highest odds of success for our films while also being ready to support our theater partners with new content as soon as they could safely reopen.

"We will share a new 2020 release date imminently for Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s wholly original and mind-blowing feature. We are not treating Tenet like a traditional global day-and-date release, and our upcoming marketing and distribution plans will reflect that."

Although the US is the largest market, the rest of the world generates around two-thirds of revenue for a movie of the stature of Tenet and, while cinemas remain closed in parts of the US such as California, they have reopened in many international markets, including the UK. Over the weekend, the new South Korean film Peninsula had a strong box office, earning $20 million (£15.8 million) in South Korea and four other Asian markets.

Little is known about Tenet, written and directed by Nolan, who has created an incredible catalogue of ambitious blockbusters such as Interstellar, Insomnia, Dunkirk, Memento and The Dark Knight Trilogy, but it is thought to be about international espionage and to return to his fascination with time.

A glance at the cast list, which includes Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh, Elizabeth Debicki and John David Washington, is enough to suggest it is a project of almost unprecedented ambition.

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