Tenet was supposed to be the movie of the summer. As Christopher Nolan's latest mind-bending project, the film was eagerly awaited by fans across the country.
And then, the corona-virus pandemic hit. Tenet was pushed a back a couple of weeks. And then, a couple more weeks. And then, finally, the news that no film fan wanted to hear: "Tenet has been postponed indefinitely."
The corona-virus has largely left studio executives scratching their heads. American viewers are their primary audience, yet, America has increasingly fallen behind the rest of the world in terms of its corona-virus response. In fact, theaters in China, France, and Germany were all open by July.
This raises the question: should movies wait for an American audience, or stagger their releases?
Tenet has opted for the second choice. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will open overseas on August 26th, while waiting until early September for an American release.
Although this choice largely revolves around safety concerns, it is indicative of a change in global media consumption. American media such as movies, music, and professional sports are no longer exclusively American products. For example, in the 2017-2018 NBA season, nearly 21 million Chinese fans tuned into the NBA Finals. In comparison, only 18 million viewers watched in the U.S.!
In a post-corona world, America may no longer find itself as the primary audience for American movies. For the past decade, Hollywood has already been catering to Chinese audiences. In the 2013 zombie flick World War Z, the origin of the virus was altered from China to North Korea. In 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction, the Chinese military are shown heroically saving the day in the film's climatic battle. Even this summer, Chinese censors successfully had a Japanese and Taiwanese flag removed from Tom Cruise's jacket in Top Gun: Maverick.
The blueprint for a China-driven film market already exists. Joint U.S.-China film productions have started popping up, whether it be 2018's The Meg or 2019's Midway. Tenet's move to open early in China (and other countries) is the natural evolution of this trend. As CNN reports,"China’s burgeoning market of movie-goers is expected to soon surpass the United States as the largest in the world."
This change in the film industry also comes with its fair share of controversy. Should American-made movies be pandering to foreign audiences? Martha Bayles, a columnist from the Atlantic, blasts this recent trend in her editorial titled "Hollywood's Great Leap Backward on Free Expression."She writes, Hollywood's active efforts to penetrate the Chinese market are skewed towards a "passive acceptance of China's increasingly heavy-handed censorship."
The "simple days" of the 1960s when American consumerism ruled the globe are gone. American movies no longer necessarily target American audiences, or promote what are traditionally seen as "American values." In a post-corona world, who knows what the future of film will look like. However, with South Korean films winning the Oscars and American films targeting Chinese audiences, the one thing we know for sure is that movies are no longer bound by borders.
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