"Tenet" box office exceeded 200 million in 3 days but still failed to beat "Eight Hundred"

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster new film "Tenet" began to be released in mainland China last Friday. "Tenet" was also released in places such as South Korea and Italy. In the United States, the film has been released in 2,810 theaters that have been opened in major cities. As the first Hollywood blockbuster to be released after theaters resumed work this year, "Tenet" has performed well at the box office in various countries, and easily became the weekend box office champion in South Korea, Italy, the United States and other countries. "Tenet" had a box office of 204 million yuan in three days over the weekend in mainland China, which is a good result, but the film did not win the weekend box office championship in the mainland film market because it lost to "Eight Hundred" for three consecutive days. In other words, "Eight Hundred", a domestic blockbuster that has been released for three weeks, won the weekend box office championship for the third time this weekend with a box office of 220.8 million yuan.

The premiere did not beat "Eight Hundred", and the proportion of screenings was reduced

Tenet premiered in mainland China last Friday. This Hollywood movie with cool scientific concepts and "visual spectacle" scenes took up 42.6% of the mainland movie market on its premiere day, becoming the movie with the highest number of screenings on that day. However, the attendance rate of Tenet on that day was 10.1%, and the box office on the premiere day was 57.0114 million yuan, ranking second.

In comparison, although "The Eight Hundred" accounted for 36.2% of the screenings on that day, its attendance rate was 12.9%, and its box office on that day was 57.2464 million yuan, beating the "fresh and hot" "Tenet" by a slight margin.

Cinema managers with a keen sense of the market adjusted their strategies on the second day (Saturday). The Eight Hundred had the highest share of screenings, 38.1%. The share of screenings for Tenet was 35.2%. In the end, the box office of the Eight Hundred on that day was 92.2993 million yuan, and the box office of Tenet was 80.4516 million yuan. On the third day (Sunday), the share of screenings for the Eight Hundred rose to 39.5%, and that for Tenet was 33.6%. The box office of the Eight Hundred on that day was 71.3003 million yuan, and that for Tenet was 63.9249 million yuan.

Many fans were surprised that Tenet lost to The Eight Hundred, which had been released for three weeks, in its opening weekend. However, a theater manager said that Tenet was already Nolan's highest-grossing film in the mainland in terms of opening weekend box office. His previous film Dunkirk grossed less than 200 million yuan in the mainland in its opening weekend in 2017.

"Brain-burning" is a "selling point" and also a threshold

Before the release of "Tenet", Nolan's two old works "Interstellar" and "Inception" were re-screened in the mainland. The box office of "Interstellar" was 121 million yuan, and the box office of "Inception" was 31.412 million yuan. The two films "warmed up" for "Tenet" and also reminded the audience that "Nolan's movies are all good to watch."

Tenet has selling points, a solid cast, and more importantly, the previously released trailers allow audiences to see exciting and novel action scenes such as "a car lying on the ground suddenly flips over and recovers, running backwards on the road to stage an alternative car chase" and "the male protagonist shoots, and the bullet flows back from a distance and is loaded into the pistol." Nolan's film uses various concepts that make science fiction fans excited, such as entropy and the grandfather paradox. Audiences who like "brain-burning" plots should want to watch Tenet.

However, "brain-burning" is the selling point of "Tenet", but it is also the threshold that "prevents" audiences from watching. A theater manager said that the box office of "Tenet" in its opening weekend was inferior to that of "Eight Hundred", and a big reason for this was the most widely circulated review after the film was released: "I can't understand it".

Although movie fans are enthusiastically discussing online how to straighten out the "incomprehensible" story of "Tenet", most viewers basically stay away from the movie when they hear that they "don't understand it". Because going to the cinema to "do the test" on a rare weekend of relaxation will indeed "dissuade" many viewers.

More importantly, after fans explained the difficult-to-understand "Tenet", many people on the Internet responded: So that's how it is, but it's unnecessary. Because of this, the score of "Tenet" on Douban has dropped to 7.9 points in three days since its release. This is the second lowest Douban score among Nolan's feature films. The lowest is "Insomnia" in 2002, which scored 7.5 points. As for "Interstellar" and "Inception", two films that have sparked heated discussions among audiences in the mainland, Douban scores are both 9.3 points.

However, the 200 million yuan box office in the mainland on its first weekend is also a good boost for "Tenet". After all, the film's global box office has exceeded 140 million US dollars, becoming the first Hollywood movie to exceed 100 million US dollars in the international film market since the outbreak of the epidemic.