Warner Bros. Pictures has released a new trailer for Tenet, the latest film from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan. The trailer premiered in Fortnite before being released on YouTube Thursday evening.
Much like the first trailer for Tenet, the latest preview of the much-anticipated movie doesn’t offer much in the way of concrete details — which has become par for the course with Nolan’s films — but it does deliver plenty of intriguing visual and narrative elements.
Set to star John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Kenneth Branagh, Tenet is ostensibly set in the world of international espionage, but previews of the film have included plenty of nods to science-fiction concepts and imagery. Nolan himself has called it his most ambitious project to date, which is no small boast, given the complexity he’s woven into many of his films, particularly 2010’s multilayered sci-fi thriller Inception.
While Tenet is certainly an important project for Warner Bros. and Nolan, the project carries an additional aspect of importance to Hollywood as a whole.
The film is currently the first major release still scheduled to hit theaters this summer after most of the country’s theaters were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Theaters are just beginning to reopen around the U.S., and it remains to be seen whether chains will be able to open enough — and with a high enough level of occupancy — to support a premiere as big as Tenet.
Tenet is currently scheduled to hit theaters July 17, and whether it succeeds or fails will likely determine if other studios stick to their movie premiere plans for the summer and fall seasons. Currently, Tenet is expected to be followed in theaters by Disney’s live-action Mulan on July 24, then Wonder Woman 1984 on August 14.
If theaters aren’t open — or back to viable operating levels, at least — by July, Warner Bros. could still decide to push Tenet back in the calendar.
