Tenet scored big at the box office on opening weekend. Are movie theaters safe?

A Tenet billboard
(Image credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)

Christopher Nolan's Tenet brought in $20 million in domestic ticket sales over the weekend as it had the highest grossing opening weekend of any film in the U.S. since the coronavirus pandemic forced cinemas across the country to close, CNBC reports. The spy thriller has made nearly $150 million worldwide following up on last week's surprisingly strong foreign debut, adding $78.3 million in foreign markets over the weekend, including $30 million in China.

Tenet would have been expected to make $35 million to $55 million in its domestic debut pre-COVID, which would have put it in the neighborhood of other Nolan films such as Interstellar and Inception. The weekend's take was limited by a cap on attendance at 50 percent capacity. Also, only about 65 percent of U.S. theaters have reopened.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.