RE: financial times article re blockbusters7 Sep 2020 16:23
"Rich Gelfond, chief executive of Imax, said the Tenet results were strong enough to warrant a Wonder Woman theatrical release this year.
“What [Tenet] was about was proving that people would go to the theatres in significant numbers. It definitely proved that,” said Mr Gelfond, pointing to strong results in China.
The results in Tenet’s first US weekend were “very strong in the context that a lot of North America still wasn’t open”, he added.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at ComScore, said the initial results for Tenet were “solid”.
“It’s going to be all about the long-term playability,” he said, predicting that the film would gain more traction as more cities opened in North America in the coming weeks.
Mr Nolan has long sought to preserve the cinema even as attendance has waned and streaming services have invaded. In March, as the pandemic took hold in the US, he wrote an impassioned defence of the cinema, calling it a “vital part of social life”.
“In uncertain times, there is no more comforting thought than that we’re all in this together, something the moviegoing experience has been reinforcing for generations,” he said."