Box Office Discussion: Deadbeat "Tenet"

 

Tenet continues to fade, and nothing else is stepping up.

Six weeks into the experiment to reopen America's theaters in the midst of a pandemic, and three weeks into the experiment of seeing if a heavily hyped, very expensive thriller would get people back into those theaters, we seem to have a verdict.  Maybe everyone should have waited a tad bit longer.

Repeating at #1 for the third straight week is Tenet, which took in $4.7 million to bring its total to $36.1 million.  That's not a terrible total, considering, but it's not a great one, either.  At this point, its looking like the Christopher Nolan thriller will top out around $50 million domestic, which once upon a time would have been a disappointing opening weekend figure.  That said, that's enough to make it, for now, the year's 8th highest grossing film, which it probably has already achieved, as it was just a few hundred thousand below The Gentlemen.

The New Mutants continues to hold off all newcomers, spending its third straight week in second with a gross of $1.8 million.  Its total now stands at $17.7 million.  Given the rock bottom expectations, that number might actually count as a win for the film.

Opening in third is Infidel, a right-wing thriller starring Jim Caviezel, who may not be identifed with the Republican Party as much as, say, Scott Baio, but seems to star in a lot of these types of films.  Here, he plays an American kidnapped by Iran.  Reviews were surprisingly not awful, but the film still opened to $1.4 million, which at least is a bit more than last week's flop The Broken Hearts Gallery opened to.

Unhinged continues to chug along in 4th, taking in $1.3 million for a total of $15.7 million.  The aforementioned Gallery didn't hold up too well in its second weekend, making only $0.8 million for a ten-day total of $2.4 million.

After that, the number drop off really fast.  In 6th is Canada-only The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which took in only $0.2 million for a total of $4.2 million.  From 7-9, Bill & Ted Face the Music, newcomer Alone, a thriller about a woman trying to outwit a serial killer, and The Personal History of David Copperfield were all bunched up between $170,000 and $190,000.  Rounding out the Top 10, Words on Bathroom Walls finished a tad below the films above it, at just under $150,000.

The one movie set to open wide this weekend (exactly how wide is still up in the air) is Shortcut, which appears to be an Italian-shot horror movie with a mostly British main cast, about a bunch of teens in the middle of nowhere trying to outrun a monster.  With no publicity and no famous cast members, this one might be lucky to top $1 million for the weekend, even if wide does mean wide.  If the industry can get through the next two weekends, The War With Grampa, still set for October 9, Honest Thief, on October 16, and Death on the Nile, on October 23, might just provide some much needed sparks at the multiplexes.