Christopher Nolan’s new movie “Tenet” is slated to be the first big-budget film to hit theaters since the coronavirus shutdown, but will there be enough people in the seats in July for the movie to turn a profit?
On this week’s episode of “TheWrap-Up” podcast, hosts Sharon Waxman and Daniel Goldblatt were joined by TheWrap’s box office reporter Jeremy Fuster and Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, to discuss if a theater at half-capacity can still produce enough revenue for Warner Bros.
“Right now, what most movie theater companies are expecting is a 50% capacity limit, and that’s really what they’re hoping for,” Fuster said. “If a state government tells them a 25% capacity, then you’re not going to see a lot of theaters reopened because it’s very, very difficult to make a profit off of that kind of a percentage.”
Dergarabedian added, “I think (Warner Bros. is) going to have to look at this as a marathon, not a sprint. This is something where the opening weekend dynamics are going to be completely different than traditionally we’ve looked at them … What they’re going to have to look at is, for each auditorium, there will be fewer people but in a multiplex, each one of those screens may be devoted to one movie or even two or three.”
Watch the video above and you can listen to the full episode below.
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“TheWrap-Up” is hosted each week by founder and editor in chief Sharon Waxman and assistant managing editor Daniel Goldblatt. The pair dive into the biggest headlines of the week in the world of movies, television, streaming and tech. Each episode features two deeper dive segments featuring our knowledgable and talented team of Wrap Pro reporters, offering up their in-depth, expert analysis you won’t hear anywhere else.