Will ‘Tenet’ save the cinema?
The industry could really do with one of the time-bending machines straight out of Christopher Nolan’s secret agent spectacular, writes James Moore
Cinemas were allowed to open their doors for socially distanced moviegoing in England on 4 July. Their customers didn’t exactly charge back. In the week commencing 14 August, UK-wide box office revenues were running at just 8 per cent of the previous year.
It’s true that the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales have taken a more cautious stance towards reopening, and a lot of English movie theatres have yet to take the plunge, particularly smaller independent ones. The British Film Institute’s BFI Southbank cinema will only return next week, for example.
But taking all that into account, the numbers are still very low. People have not flocked back to the cinema as some had hoped. But can the summer’s first big release change that?
Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s time-twisting secret agent spectacular, is carrying the hopes of an industry that could really do with one of its reverse entropy machines to take us back to a time before the pandemic.
It will answer a key question: how much of the lacklustre box office is down to a lack of inventory and how much is down to fear?
The former has been a real issue for recently reopened multiplexes, which can usually rely on a steady stream of blockbusters from Hollywood to tempt customers at this time of year. Big releases have been put back and then put back again, with several sparking speculation that their distributors might ultimately skip cinemas entirely and go down the video on demand (VOD) route.
This has left chains reliant upon a mixture of vintage movies – earlier Nolan works, such as Inception, which celebrates its 10th birthday this year, among them – pre-lockdown releases which have been available to stream for some time (Invisible Man, Onward, Trolls 2) and second-tier fare such as Russell Crowe’s Unhinged, which was greeted with less than spectacular reviews. “Road-Rage Thriller Unhinged Isn’t Worth Getting Covid-19 For” was how culture website Vulture headlined its review. This neatly, if unhelpfully, demonstrated how the two challenges facing cinema operators are playing off each other.
Some people might be prepared to set aside their concerns for something really good, but Russell Crowe getting road rage isn’t going to move them.
Tenet is a very different beast. It’s a high concept thriller with an A-list director, an A-list budget, an appealing cast (John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh), and several beehives worth of buzz. That the early reviews have largely been positive is the icing on the cake.
So, is it worth, as Vulture put it, getting Covid-19 for?
That headline isn’t really fair, at least when applied to UK movie theatres.
It took me several weeks to overcome my misgivings about going, despite having been sent a link demonstrating Showcase’s protocols prior to its reopening through being a member of its Insider loyalty card scheme (the cleaning between screenings was a prominent part of that).
I finally decided to test the waters at the end of a two-week staycation.
The chain’s Newham branch doesn’t have much “romance of cinema” about it. It’s bordered on two sides by major roads and looks a bit like a gigantic Lego Juniors kit from the outside. It’s a place you’re probably going to have to drive to. But the staff inside are usually friendly and as a wheelchair user, it can’t be faulted on grounds of accessibility.
What I found went I arrived was that masks (now compulsory) had become an important part of the staff uniform. The concession stand boasted Perspex screens. Paying for entry onsite rather than booking online, I was asked to use a self-service machine and had to input my email address before it coughed out my ticket (contact tracing you see) for the socially distanced screening. Hand sanitiser was a ubiquitous presence. The floor was marked to facilitate distancing and direct traffic.
Of course, it rapidly became clear that I was scarcely taking any risk at all. The middle of a Friday afternoon isn’t quite peak time for cinemas, but in the middle of August you’d usually expect to encounter a steady stream of families.
On this Friday, however, the social distancing was all but perfect, facilitated by the fact that the place was nearly empty. I was able to enjoy the luxury of a cinema to myself.
I tested a second, very different, venue a day later, this time for another vintage Nolan film in the form of The Dark Knight. South Woodford’s Odeon is a traditional town centre movie hall dating back to pre-multiplex days. It had similar anti-coronavirus measures in place. The people who check your tickets were even wearing plastic visors. There just weren’t many other customers to check – once again I had the theatre to myself.
If Tenet encourages the hordes it will put the protocols to the test but staggered entry is being accomplished through it taking up almost every available screen. The Newham Showcase, for example, has afforded it 16 different show times on opening night. Crowe’s offering comes a distant second with a mere three.
Prior to cinemas reopening in June, the BFI sought to test audience sentiment by polling 2,000 people, representative of the cinema-going population aged 18 and above. Some 82 per cent said they needed reassurance that cinemas were safe, and 81 per cent wanted policing of venues by staff.
I cannot say with absolute certainty that it is safe, not being a public health expert, but having joined the minority who’ve ventured back and seen the protocols in operation, I feel somewhat reassured. I saw shops, restaurants, cafes and bars over the preceding fortnight which could, and in many cases should, take notes.
The next most popular sentiment in the BFI survey was the importance of the choice of film. It was expressed by 67 per cent of participants. So clearly, the lack of new films is playing a role in the box office’s struggles.
Of late, it has been on an upward curve, although it’s been a case of baby steps. Per the BFI, the box office take for the week beginning 7 August was just 6 per cent of the previous year, compared to the 8 per cent of the following week. Perhaps the safety measures, combined with word of mouth, are having an impact.
If Showcase is right, Tenet could produce a much bigger jump.
Mark Barlow, general manager for Showcase Cinemas UK, says: “Between Friday evening and Monday morning we saw a 75 per cent increase in ticket sales for Tenet. We believe the upsurge in sales is due to a number of factors, including more awareness of the film due to increased marketing and very positive early reviews, as well as the UK cinema industry’s ‘Love Cinema’ campaign.”
Barlow expects “strong attendances” for the film throughout the rest of August, into September and beyond. His industry rather badly needs for him to be right about that, and for other studios to push the button on their own delayed releases rather than exploring further premium VOD releases, as Disney has done in the US with Mulan.
The current level of the UK box office isn’t sustainable, even with cinemas paying reduced rents. They still have to pay staff costs, and there’s an awful lot of extra cleaning products to be bought.
Showcase is owned by US media company National Amusements. Because it is a private outfit there isn’t much data when it comes to the impact on its business of lockdowns in the US, the UK, and in its other territories. In March it spoke of an “amended credit facility” with its lenders, said it had “substantial cash reserves” and pledged not to sell stock in the Nasdaq-listed ViacomCBS, which it controls.
Analysts at Jeffries, however, estimated that the UK-quoted Cineworld, which has chains in the US, the UK and continental Europe, has been burning through $40m monthly. It has raised cash through placing new shares, had its banking covenants (conditions lenders attach to loans) waived, borrowed through the UK government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and applied for money from the US Cares Act.
We look forward to welcoming many of our customers back for what is set to be the movie event of the summer
Cineworld is also talking up Tenet, and if it’s correct there are indeed grounds for optimism. “We are pleased by pre-release bookings for Tenet, which are tracking at a similar level to that of a blockbuster released pre-Covid. We look forward to welcoming many of our customers back for what is set to be the movie event of the summer,” the chain said.
But even if the pandemic doesn’t shutter cinemas again, it is changing the structure of the industry. Some of the parent companies of the big studios have made big bets on streaming. The success enjoyed by Universal’s Trolls 2, which was given a VOD release at the height of lockdown and broke cinemas’ cherished 90-day window of exclusivity, turned heads earlier this year.
The move produced an unusually strongly worded response from a furious Cineworld: “Universal unilaterally chose to break our understanding and did so at the height of the Covid-19 crisis when our business is closed, more than 35,000 employees are at home and when we do not yet have a clear date for the reopening of our cinemas.
“Universal’s move is completely inappropriate and certainly has nothing to do with good faith business practice, partnership and transparency,” it declared.
CEO Mooky Greidinger rounded on Brian Roberts, the chairman of Universal’s owner Comcast, for what he said was the failure to communicate the move as other studios had.
“Nice words from your team are worthless if we cannot trust you as a partner,” he says. “All our partners called us in a timely manner and told us that in the current situation they want to shorten the window for movies that were already released as cinemas are closing. Most importantly, they all reassured us that there will be no change to their window policy once the cinema business returned.”
AMC, the world’s biggest movie chain, was similarly unimpressed at the time. But recently it has changed tack, announcing an agreement to shorten the exclusive theatrical window to just 17 days for the studio’s films. After the shorter theatrical run, Universal will have the option of opening its films to premium on-demand rental, including via AMC’s own streaming service (thus ensuring the company gets a cut of the revenue).
I’m told there are no plans for such a move from Cineworld, which remains fiercely protective of the window. But the move is illustrative of the change sweeping the industry, one that is set to continue and lead to calls for multiplexes to reinvent themselves.
For its part, Cineworld stresses the importance of the silver screen to Tenet. “Tenet is a cinematic experience designed for the big screen and we hope that it helps to restore confidence in attending the cinema ahead of other high profile releases later this year, including the latest Bond, Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow and A Quiet Place II,” the company said in a statement.
My lonely return to my local Showcase demonstrates that there is some truth in that. Inception, a film I’ve seen more times than I can count, was still thrilling in front of a large screen in a darkened room with Hans Zimmer’s memorable score pumping out of the speakers.
It was worth paying to see the movie like that, and with the safety measures in place, it felt worth whatever risk was posed to someone like me who has already had an unpleasantly long encounter with Covid-19. Would I have felt the same had I not come through a battle with the virus? I can’t say. But I will be among those taking in Tenet.
Cinema operators face some serious challenges, both from a rapidly restructuring industry and from the financial fallout of the pandemic. More of them may very well have to learn to live with it, even embrace streaming, à la AMC.
Working in their favour, however, is that they still have a very worthwhile product. There is still nothing like the experience of seeing a big move on a big screen. Perhaps Tenet, alongside masks, staggered entry and deep cleaning, can underline the point.
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