The Big Picture - Can Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' Reopen Theaters?

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

An extraordinary burden has been placed upon 'Tenet.' With a still-unchanged July 17 release date, the Warner Bros. production could be the movie to reopen movie theaters and kick-start Hollywood again. But is it too soon? Many in the industry believe the date will stick and topple a series of dominoes that will affect the movie industry for months and years to come. Sean and Amanda look at the 'Tenet' conundrum from all angles. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The Ringer is launching a new podcast from the guys who brought you a cesspitous family barbecue called Baseball Barbecue. Hosted by Jake Mintz and Jordan Schusterman, they're bringing you the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre corners of the baseball world and everything that makes it special. Throughout the offseason, they'll dive into the rabbit hole on some of their favorite fascinations, from the home run derby to baseball brawls and much more. Once the season returns, they'll break down the latest MLB news and developments. You can subscribe to Baseball Barbecue on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessyy I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is the big picture a conversation show about the movie everyone is waiting for I'm talking about an audacious story that is stoking conversation about the future of the theatrical experience a visionary film that features movie

stars extraordinary action high stakes the works I'm talking, of course, about Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe in theaters around the country on July 1st. Just kidding. I'm talking about Tenet, the sci-fi crime saga directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Robert Pattinson that is expected to arrive as of this recording in theaters across the country on July 17th.

Or is it? Tenet has been touted as the movie that will reopen Hollywood, that can salvage what has been a tremendously difficult period for theatrical exhibitors, theater workers, actors, filmmakers, craftspeople, studio employees, journalists, essentially every single person who works in or is connected to the film industry. Television is streaming into perpetuity, but movies still need theaters. And so there is an extraordinary burden on Tenet. This is one of the signature communal events in American life, gathering in the dark to be excited, terrified, thrilled, everything that Christopher Nolan's movies do

at their very best. And yet, Amanda, it seems completely impossible that movie theaters will open two months from today. I've spoken to people in and around the industry over the past week to get a feel for this moment, and everyone very confused how are you feeling about the burden that is placed on Tenet right now I do not think that any one movie can save the movie industry or that it is fair to expect any one movie to save the movie industry or ruin the movie industry or reopen theaters or give us all our jobs back or everything that is put on on tenant um that said i definitely don't think it's opening it too much i just what are we doing what are we doing i completely agree this just seems like one of the most obvious and difficult conversations

in this entire throughout much of covet 19 and obviously this is very low on the list of important concerns regarding all the ramifications low on the list of important concerns regarding all the ramifications. But for the purposes of this podcast, it's a huge deal because everything has really ground to a halt with the exception of Trolls World Tour and a handful of Netflix releases and Scoob.

You know, the movie industry is just not moving forward. There's no production happening right now. And with the exception of a handful of drive-in movie theaters, which seem to be doing pretty nice business right now, movies are at a standstill. And we got a report over the weekend from Deadline about the stakes involved here

with potentially making Tenet the re-entry film. And the report stated that Warner Brothers needs 80% of the world's theaters to be opening to make Tenet successful. I suppose that could also be true for just 80% of the theaters in the United States open to make the film successful. This is a film with a $200 million budget and a lot of expectation even before there was a global pandemic and it certainly just doesn't feel like we're close to being able to have experiences like going to movie theaters.

I agree with that. To me, it feels a little bit like a game of, you know, I don't want to say chicken because I do think everybody's taking their responsibilities as seriously as they can. There's just obviously like a lot of information that no one has but it really seems like on the one hand warner brothers is waiting for the local and state and regulations to be like okay no your movie theaters will not be

open then it won't be possible and i think the movie theaters that those local state regulation bodies etc like frankly have better things to do and are not worried about when movie theaters are going to be open it's not the priority so it does just seem like a game of waiting for someone to blink finally because we're getting closer and closer to July 17th. And it just doesn't seem like the systems are in place for this to be possible, especially at the scale that Warner Brothers has indicated that it needs in order to make Tenet successful. I thought a really interesting thing in that deadline piece that you mentioned was that it said that 80% of theaters need to be open, including New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco,

which are three of the major movie markets in the United States and three very large cities that have taken different approaches to how to manage this, but are not immediately throwing open the doors to every single business establishment. So just from a practical sense, it seems like we're running out of time. I agree. As residents of California, I think it's safe to say that I'm grateful for how the leadership in the state has handled the pandemic. But also, they have been operating with an overwhelming sense of caution in all these issues. And that has been met with some frustration by business owners, by people who just want to go to the beach. But, you know, we're talking about two months. It's not a long period of time. And the cases are going to open. And we'll get into this as we get deeper into this conversation about the expectations around this film and then the

expectations around the industry in general. But the domino effect on this is just extraordinary for what we talk about on this show every week. And you and I can probably come up with top 10 lists until the cows come home and have a lot of fun talking about old movies. And I cooked up two more ideas for stuff for us to talk about last night. And I think that'll be great to do. But the lifeblood of a contemporary film podcast is contemporary films, is new films and the conversation that stokes new films. And Tenet is one of those movies that if you dig this show and dig what we're doing and care about movies the way that we do, it is one of the key movies. It's one of the five key movies that was going to come out

this year. It is the kind of movie, even though I personally am not always the biggest Christopher Nolan fan, they're fun to talk about. They're really a gift. And Tenet is an original film, and it's trying to do something that even the MCU movies that we have to drag with us through every conversation or the Star Wars movies or animated kids films. As far as big tentpole stories go, this is really the biggest and most unique in its way. And so there seen that there are already some guidelines for what a theater could do to open. Texas, several weeks ago, had the opportunity to reopen its movie theaters and some theaters did open, but that didn't mean that any of the notable studios were going to release their films into

those studios. So that's the first thing. The studios have to agree to start putting movies out. We saw last week that the Forever Purge, the fifth Purge film from Blumhouse, was taken from off the date of July 10th and is now indefinitely coming out. And that's just going to keep happening. The movies that are around Tenet are also starting to move or starting to see August films move or starting to see even September movies move into 2021. And so because of that, and because of these guidelines that we're going to talk about, it seems unlikely. But I mean, you cited some checkered seating here and the way that we would live in a movie theater if this were to happen. What has to happen here for this to work? We don't know what has to happen. And this is what's interesting is that what I'm going to cite, checkered seating is a

phrase that has come up in a lot of the industry reporting as the trades are speaking with theater owners and trying to put together some guidelines. But everyone is still figuring this out. Nothing has been like officially announced. So the general understanding of what checkered seating is, and I'm quoting the Hollywood Reporter here, is that theaters could end up leaving every other row empty, as well as keeping empty seats between patrons in alternating rows. And I think there would be a reserve seating element. There is a reserve seating element to a lot of theaters already. But enforcing where people can buy tickets and where people can sit.

And this seems to kind of be the consensus at this moment in terms of what checkered seating is. Then there would be like increased sanitary measures throughout the theaters. Though, you know, I think that'll be a theater by theater standard as to what they're doing and how they're enforcing it, because there aren't major guidelines coming up from above at this point. So, you know, that to me is such a big question is like if even if the theaters are allowed to open, this is like an extreme amount of legwork. You know, this is just a completely new, involved, expensive system that they have to put into place in order to allow a lot fewer theater people into their theaters. And that takes time and resources before you even get into questions of like, quote, consumer confidence or other issues. It's the same issue that is facing many restaurants around the country. It's the same issue that's facing many stores, many businesses in terms of when they open,

how will they manage the intake and how will they manage the personal interaction that is necessary when operating a business? I think there's anxiety about running your credit card through a credit card reader right now and a concern about being able to sanitize your hands and wash your hands and wear a mask. And I think that there's also obviously an additional layer of liability concern,

given that if these movie theaters do open in July and Tenet does play and people go and there's an awareness of the film, if one person walks out of a movie theater and contracts the virus from another person who has gone to a movie theater, what does that mean for the movie theater? What does that mean for the filmmakers? What does that mean for the studio? What level of responsibility and financial and legal liability do they have? I don't know. This is uncharted territory. This is a free country to some extent.

And given that, I think it's probably arguable about whether or not businesses should accept blame and responsibility for someone becoming sick in an environment like that. It's not as if the movie business is the only business that is struggling financially. And so even though that's the big focus of this conversation, every business is going to have to consider these concerns. I think that's completely true. I think there should and there's will. And I just think that when we are trying to understand how movie theaters and studios are evaluating these decisions, you do have to keep in mind that they are probably trying to do the math of what liability they're willing

to accept and how they work it out against the procedures that they can put in place versus how they can put it against their bottom line. And it's a tricky dance and uncharted territory. So let's talk about that. That's the sort of uncharted territory that comes with the checkered seating that you cited. The economic feasibility of this is another factor. Obviously, the budget on Tenet is huge and the budget on a movie like Mulan, which is scheduled to come out shortly thereafter. These are big, big movies that need not just one viewing, but repeat viewings from fans of the film that need Friday and Saturday nights sold out. We've seen, like I said, drive-in movies have been modestly successful. IFC's The Wretched has gotten a lot of press.

A very small horror movie that has made $85,000 across 21 drive-in locations. That's okay. But $85,000 wouldn't cover the catering on the production of Tenet. It's a very small sum when we're talking about these massive releases. So in that deadline story, Anthony D'Alessandro reported that the public comments by Disney chairman Bob Chapek and Cinemark executives cited that making this theatrical business sustainable at 30 to 50% capacity is unlikely. And with that checkered seating, you basically would have less than half the number of people that would normally fill a movie theater. And D'Alessandro quotes a very aggressive

anonymous source who said, you really think theaters can survive on limited capacity? Here's an oldie but a goodie. Friday and Saturday night only come around once a week. Pro forma budget projection should be based on selling out at prime shows on Friday and Saturday. Otherwise, you wouldn't build it. So to think that these theaters can be profitable at even 50% is ridiculous, not to mention the loss of $10 to $15 on concession per person. Seems we have a different perception of the business. So if we're not casting a dark enough shadow on the likelihood of this happening, this quote kind of sums it up, which is that like so many things in our culture,

this really comes down to money. There's been an extraordinary investment in all of these movies. And if movie theaters can't make their money back and studios can't make their money back on the outlay for services by employees, for the rents, for all the things that go into running a daily operation, then it doesn't make sense for them to go forward. It doesn't make sense for them to open this movie. So when you saw this, were you like, this is completely logical? Or do you think that there's an aspect of panic that is running through some of these comments especially the anonymous comments when i saw the deadline piece i thought okay now we're actually talking about it in the real terms which is money because i i don't want to diminish all of the concerns that are going on

here especially in terms of um people's health and safety and everything that people are suffering and losing right now. And that is the real, those are the real concerns. In terms of movie theaters opening, I think that is also a real concern for you and me, but I do agree that this decision will be made in terms of how health and safety can be balanced against how much money Warner Brothers is going to make and how much money the theaters are going to make. And that that is informing every single thing that they do. And it informed it before this crisis and it'll inform it after this crisis. So in this sense, I was like, okay, now we're talking in real terms. And I don't understand it.

It seems like a huge financial risk on top of all the other risks, which we can talk about or not if you want. I think you and I both don't want to be a panic inducing podcast. And I think we would say, please get your information from the CDC and other trusted sources and not us. But financially, it does seem like a massive risk for one of the five or so movies that was going to bankroll your entire company. the studio itself, because if you delay it, then you delay the profits. And I do not get the impression that any of these businesses are built in a way that can allow for just a pause. And that affects not just the studio heads and the theater owners, but it trickles down to

everyone who works on these movies. And that's a big deal. It's a lot of jobs, and that is important as well. So I don't want to put it totally in terms of like, oh, these people are either going to get rich or they're not going to release the movies because there are serious concerns here. But it just doesn't seem feasible to make the amount of money that they need to make to make this work for them long term. Let me ask you this. Would you go to a movie theater on July 17th, you, Amanda Dobbins? Well, this is a really complicated question. And again, I don't want to be panic inducing. And I think to an extent, it is every person's decision for themselves. You know, interesting

when you and I might have to have a conversation about this. Are we going to go? Because it is our job. And listen, we're very lucky to have jobs. And we're very like, we have been lucky to have this as our job since well before COVID-19. And like, no one is playing a violin for me. Okay. That having to go to Tenet is part of it. There are people who are actually risking their lives and safety for real things. But we will have to talk about it. And I think there would be more considerations about does it make sense than there were five months ago, say. Do you want to get into like ethical principles of it? I don't know. I don't think that's useful. Ultimately, I have like a larger idea of what I can justify

in my own head. But like I just said, thousands of people's jobs are on the line. And this is about things other than like Amanda Dobbins, like code of ethics. Of course. Yeah, I'm not sure. I certainly wouldn't want my own point of view to necessarily fully infect other people. I'm not going to, I'm not going to core shame anybody around any of their desires. I mean, you know, since we're friends that I have taken this very seriously, that I'm immensely germaphobic and that I,

I don't know that I, some of it is, it's a sense of ethical responsibility. Some of it is just a general sense of fear. Some of it is the fact that I feel very well equipped for this moment in history. And I'm very fortunate, like you said, to be in the position professionally and personally that I'm in right now that makes this more manageable than for millions of other people. In general, I hate it when there's a person coughing in a movie

theater during a non-pandemic. I really have a hard time sitting next to somebody on an airplane who I can sense is sick. That's just me personally. I have an anxiety about that. And so even though the thing I look forward to most is going to the big movie in the middle of July for my birthday and celebrating with my friends and then going to dinner and talking about the movie that we've just seen. That might be my favorite thing to do in the world. I still don't think I would be comfortable going to a theater at this time. I have a response to that. I think I do mostly agree with you, but I tend to think of it, specifically movies, less even in comfort than just in, I can't really justify the risk more to other people of a movie theater specifically when I have another option at home. And movies are a really specific thing where we have the technological replacement. Now it is not the same.

Okay. And I hate watching movies at home as this podcast is documented for years now. And I'm really bad at it. And I think it's a different experience. And I think that the experience of seeing a movie together changes the way you receive a movie and it changes the way that you receive other people. I think it is like the most powerful thing I believe in movie theaters and joint cinema, but we have the technology. And I think also just practically speaking, there are a lot of people who even before all of this were like, hey, we have the technology for me to watch this at home. So why am I going to go to your movie theater?

And there is just a sort of practical behavioral hurdle here, even before you get into concerns of safety or the just and the plain logistics of it that doesn't quite add up to me. So many people are already like, no, thanks. I'll just wait until it's on streaming. And I only have to pay $15 a month for it or, you it or $20 at home once rather than going to a theater. That was just practical behavior well before this. And I love movies as much as I do. And I really do love them.

It's our jobs to love them. It seems specifically hard to justify. Do think that we're are we as is frequently the case honestly are we are we in a liberal coastal bubble here are we is our is our panic at least not in concert with the rest of the country is it possible that you know there are people in in the south or in the Midwest or even on the West Coast and the East Coast that are like, fuck this.

I'm so sick of this. I personally have sensed in the last 10 or 12 days, even amongst my safest friends, a sense of like, I don't know how much longer I can do this. Like, this is just really difficult

and I need opportunities to break out of my cave. Do you sense that we're trapped in some sort of bubble? Listen, fuck this. I'm sick of this. I want to go outside. I would love to be able to go see a movie. Like this isn't, I've loved cooking.

I would love to tell everyone about the various recipes that I have made and that has been great. But I am with everybody else in terms of this is not the way that we're used to living. There are things about it generally that I am really struggling with, in addition to the millions of people who have gotten sick or lost someone or lost their jobs or who have been like materially affected by this. It's real. And I am with everyone of like, like yeah I'm sick of it so I think we're both like in a bubble

and I'm right there with everyone it's how you respond to it and it's kind of and it's what you're willing to adjust on and what you're not willing to take back in and I kind of think, Sean, in terms of going to see a movie theater, movie in a movie theater, like there will be a lot of people who are like, finally, I can get out of the house. Let me ask you this. Speaking of this, just why can't we make pop-up drive-ins? Like, why can't we do that? I would go every day. I think millions of people would go every day.

I understand that there is some logistical challenges in that as well, and it probably costs some money. But that sense of, I would like to go somewhere, I think millions of people are feeling that, myself included. It's a good idea. I have seen a couple of examples around the country. There was a diner, I believe, in New York that used its parking lot to set up a screen and they set up exactly what you're suggesting here. There have been some small examples. I don't know enough about the economics there to know what's feasible and what's not. There is a drive-in here in Los Angeles, the Tiki drive-in that is in Pomona that has been having

some great success during this period. They've been selling out shows, been doing great business, and it's been a boon for what they do. But even still, the people that I know that have gone to this drive-in have a lot of anxiety about going to the bathroom and have a lot of anxiety about going to the concession stand. And there are some logistical hangups still in this period. maybe you can bring an empty snapple bottle with you if you want to take care of the bathroom in the car but you know if you go if you go to the movie theater hoping to get some popcorn and a soda or as or if you're like me some sour patch kids that you might feel less comfortable with that when i buy groceries i let them sit in a room for two to three days to to let the the the veneer of disease that I fear wash away. And so the idea of

necessarily buying fresh popped popcorn from another human being, I'm just not comfortable with it right now. And all of that goes into the equation for all expectations of opening something. As far as the bubble thing, I'm very well aware of the bubble that I live in as a person, but I'm also consuming a lot of media and consuming a lot of takes at the moment. And I sense that it was interesting. I had a conversation with my brother over the weekend. My brother lives in Richmond, Virginia, and Virginia, quote unquote, opened certain services over the weekend. And then the mayor of Richmond defied that order from the governor of Virginia and closed down those services in the city of Richmond. And they were not on the same page. And I think that speaks to a kind of national anxiety about this whole issue, which is that, as you stated before,

really no one is on the same page. There's no declarative force. There's no one, quote unquote, in charge. And there's certainly no one in charge of the movie industry. We don't have a movie czar. And once upon a time when Jack Valenti ran the Motion Picture Association of America, it felt like even if he was occasionally a bit of a demagogue, it felt like there was chief who is considered the grand poobah of this thing. In fact, if anyone is that, the closest person is probably Ted Sarandos. And frankly, the quarantine has just been a huge boost to what Netflix is doing and Netflix's mission. And so this lack of consensus, this lack of centrality to a lot of the thinking, I think is driving some of this unknowability and this, this, this concern and this fear.

And, you know, certainly people's lives are potentially on the line and, and certainly people's jobs as well. And I, in addition to the fact that it seems difficult to, to see this movie opening, I don't even really know how

the studio raises the consciousness of a movie like Tenet, which really does need a strong marketing campaign. Now, the movie did get off to a good start. It released a trailer. That trailer has been viewed millions and millions of times. Christopher Nolan is a very well-known filmmaker and his movies are events. But for example, and I cited this to you last week when you and I were discussing it, and then I thought it was interesting that Anthony D'Alessandro put this in his piece as well. The absence of sports is an amazing issue around the idea of marketing movies. Because sports is the most popular live entertainment and frankly, the most popular entertainment that we have in our culture. And the way that people become aware of most other things in our culture, TV shows, movies, products, is from people sitting around my sports. When those things are gone, when they don't exist, how do you let the guy who lives, you

know, in the exurbs of Chicago know about Tenet? You know, they don't, most people don't follow this shit one one thousandth as closely as we do. And information coming to them is based on their media consumption. And so if you're not, if Tenet is not, if you're not driving around looking at billboards and you're not watching Sunday NFL or the NBA playoffs, the NBA finals would be getting ready right now. Without those things, how do you even become aware of Tenet? I feel like just that issue being depressed is such a significant factor in trying to get this movie in front of people.

Yeah, you need for a major monoculture event, you need a previous monoculture to keep it going. You can no longer create it out of nowhere anymore because our media habits are so diffuse and our lives are so diffuse right now. Everyone is just in their own home doing their own thing. And as an introvert, I can tell you there are benefits to that. But in terms of knowing what's going on, it's just you can't catch up. You really can't. You need something. You need to springboard off of something else. So I would say, and maybe we'll talk a little bit more about this later, in terms of being grandfathered into the monoculture, Christopher Nolan, Robert Pattinson, and a trailer that already came out is as good as you can do right now but is it enough to

overcome the hurdle of basic awareness and then um making it feel like a grand enough event that it actually gets people to the theaters and unusual circumstances i don't know i i will say to that end and this is purely from a marketing perspective and i'm not endorsing anything but in terms of having people be aware of your movie i do think being the first movie back is kind of it is really the only marketing available right now of being like oh the theaters are back open it's there are proceed you know procedures in place and you can go see this movie i think whatever movie that is will get a big bump for that reason because everyone just does want to be able to go do something again and to be able to do something that they haven't done

and i include myself in that like it it needs to be safe but when people actually feel that they can go back, that first big movie will be a big deal. So I suppose I understand Warner Brothers seeming insistence on being the first one back because that's a way to get awareness. But I don't think that that continues for the fourth movie out or the fifth movie out necessarily in the same way. You make a good point. That's the movie that is driving this conversation right now. And the fact that we're even having this conversation, the fact that Deadline is writing pieces like this, the fact that there is all this anticipation around it is beneficial to the marketing of the movie in a perverse way. It is the no such thing as bad publicity line. I thought you raised a really simple but insightful question here, which is, do people have a hundred bucks to spend at the movies which is, do people have $100 to spend at the movies right now? Most people don't, I don't think. I don't think so. I mean, we have seen just millions of people filing for unemployment every week. This has just been devastating for people financially as well in terms of health. And to be honest, $100 for a

night at the movies was a really big ask last year because there are other options. There are you can watch so many movies for eight or maybe it's nine or 12 or $15 a month in your home. And more and more people are doing that. And so people were already treating movies like special occasions and spending a lot of money for them. And I think the calculation of how people are spending their money on entertainment right now has changed. Let's talk more about this movie and the significant domino effects it's going to have

on the entire movie industry. But first, let's hear a quick word from a new podcast that we're excited about. Hi, I'm Patrick Radden Keefe, a reporter at The New Yorker magazine. On my new podcast, Wind of Change, I investigate a rumor I haven't been able to shake since I first heard it years ago. It came from someone inside the CIA. And the story was that the agency had written one of the best-selling rock songs of all time, a song that changed the world. So that was the tip that started me on this story, and it only got crazier from there.

Listen to Wind of Change, a new original series from Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media, and Spotify. And we're back. Let's talk about that domino effect, Amanda. So if this movie doesn't come out on July 17th, if it does move, there's speculation that it would move into the date that Wonder Woman 1984 has set of August 14th. And then that movie,

which is also a Warner Brothers release, would move to December. But if it's clear that movie theaters can't open by June, I don't see how they open by August. And then we get into this bizarre moment where we don't know when anything will come out again. Yeah, it is a little bit. They can't just do this on two days notice, because as we were discussing, you have to market these things for months and months and months to get enough people aware of them and excited about them to make the money back that you spent on them. So it can't just move from July 17th to like July 26th to give a specific example. That's Sean's

birthday, everybody. Or August 1st, which is my birthday. Please give me the Christopher Nolan film Tenet for my birthday. Just kidding. That's like, with all respect to Christopher Nolan, that's like 25th on the list of movies I want for my birthday. But you know what? I don't know why I'm being choosy. In this year, I would take it if it could be safe for everyone. But yeah, it just gets very messy. And you really do see between studios, everyone gives everybody else a wide berth because they don't want to be competing for the attention. So I think if Tenet moves, which I haven't looked at the news in the last hour for all we know, could be doing this while we're talking, then you get a domino effect of not just Warner Brothers films, but you have to assume that No Time to Die will start thinking about some other options. I believe Top Gun 2 is currently scheduled for Christmas.

Listen, that would be a Merry Christmas for me. But again, you just have to figure that things start jumping around. And then, I mean, I don't know. Then we don't have any movies. People have cited to us a conversation that you and I had just at the end of the year, where we were kind of looking forward to what was going to happen in the movie industry and you and I both shared a sense that there was a coming box office

apocalypse not with any information about what was going to happen globally in terms of the pandemic just we felt like there were not any signature MCU event movies they were smaller satellite films in at the beginning of phase four. There was no Star Wars movie on the docket. The event movies were riskier. There were movies like Dune and Tenet, original stories or stories from complicated filmmakers with big visions, but don't always make the most commercial movies. I already thought that this was almost a perilous year in terms of getting people to come out to the movie theater. And knowing that the whole business has been on this knife's edge for the last couple of

years with the onset of streaming, that there could be real ramifications to that. Now, this multiplies that times a thousand. And if the movie does move, and I think it seems like just from our perspective through having this conversation, it just feels difficult to imagine it happening in July, which means it's not likely to happen until the earliest, the fall, and then maybe even the winter. And then everything that's planned for the winter, as you say, you know, West Side Story and Dune and now Top Gun 2 and all of these big signature films that we're looking forward to, Black Widow, like all this stuff, that also then has to move because there are only so many slots for these movie theaters. And then the whole business is kind of on its ass for a year, which is really bad for movie theaters. I suspect many theaters will close. I suspect some of those companies will be in tough shape because of that. And so that is really like a true crisis point. I thought that there was an interesting aspect to the tenant conversation in the deadline piece, which definitely set off some alarm bells for you.

So this particular thing that Alessandro cited, which is that Reddit will have cracked this pick by the end of its Thursday night 7 p.m. preview. He cited this in the event that Warner Brothers was looking to platform it digitally and not release the movie in theaters that was a case against putting this movie on svod right and also i think a case against you know if if certain countries are opening theaters at a different pace then perhaps the united states is um that maybe warner brothers could kind of platform it internationally. And that's just not going to happen because the second that you do, it's probably pirated. And then Reddit is on the case.

But I did have a moment. I think it was Friday afternoon when I just said to you, the entire movie industry is hinging on like whether some people are going to shit post on Reddit. Like what, what are our lives our lives what what have we done and that's a little bit about how christopher nolan makes movies and that's a little bit about how a certain aspect of the movie and tv industry has evolved in order to try to make hay out of the way that people respond to movies there is a certain type of TV now that I would

call Reddit bait because they're trying to get you involved in the puzzle. They're trying to have people do the work or kind of create that extracurricular community that keeps people tethered to the show or the movie itself. And it's pretty ingenious in this particular climate or, you know, the way we watch things now with a second screen and, you know, eight last dance after shows and all that sort of stuff. Like the, the discussion is as valuable as the thing itself. So I don't want to hold it against the creators specifically, even though it is definitely not my type of show, usually just not my vibe at all.

But yeah, people now do have to consider what's happening on Reddit in terms of how they make major business decisions that will affect the jobs of thousands of people. Welcome to 2020. Yeah, I would say that there is a counterpoint, a kind of counter thinking to that idea, which is I feel like complicated brain riddle streaming movies are more set up to succeed and repeat viewings are the essence of these movies and returning to them over and over again. Now, there is some concern about the movies being pirated, which I understand. I don't really know if there's been data on, say, Trolls World Tour being pirated to a high extent. I don't actually know very much about the state of pirating movies in general right now it's that would be an interesting topic

for us to discuss at some point with somebody who knows more about it than we do but you know there is there is a kind of bird box thing where to you and i bird box was kind of a joke but most people that i know that watch bird box were like what a cool idea i loved this movie i had an amazing conversation that over Christmas two years ago about the movie in which my uncle said it was one of the 10 best movies he'd ever seen. And I think a lot of people, even if you and I are dubious of some of the logic, the dream logic of Christopher Nolan's movies, people love his movies and they love to unpack them. And I don't think that Reddit will spoil them. I don't think that they will drive people away from them.

I think it will drive people into them even deeper and make them more obsessed. We are living in a high time, as you say, of obsessive connection to the things that people love. So I don't necessarily see, especially if you put that price point at like $25 for a one-time viewing, they probably could make a decent amount of hay. Are they going to make the money back on the budget? Probably not. And this movie needs to make

a lot of money, as you say, because it's a big part of Warner Brothers Films' business this year. But I don't think it would be completely torpedoed by that environment either. I just want to say

that Christopher Nolan movies can be spoiled and they can be spoiled really terribly. And I know that because I've had two Christopher Nolan movies just freaking spoiled for me by some idiot before I went to see them, there was always one sentence that you can tell someone. I believe it was Dark Knight that it was just so and so dies was just said to

me before I saw this movie. And it was like so stark that I thought this person was kidding. I was like, no. And then I remember sitting there watching the movie and it happened. And I was like, are you kidding me that I did this? That's got spoiled for me. And I was mad. So by the way, these movies can be spoiled. But I think and I also do think that point of just these movies are not put together in a financial way in order to then be put on streaming and have that puzzle box aspect to them but maybe in the future if they were made financially with that end game in mind that it would work but i'll be really mad if someone spoils tenant for me is that that's what i'm saying right here on the podcast after i saw the dark knight rises i ran into the streets and spoiled the movie for everybody by screaming Bane rules. That was my spoiling strategy.

Yeah. You know, on the other hand, part of the reason why Nolan has this huge reputation and this almost iconic bearing in movies right now is that people love to return to his movies. They love to rewatch his movies. And this is just a different kind of a way to re-watch something sooner than you'd be able to normally. Whether it comes to that or not, I doubt it. I think it certainly seems like the kind of movie that can wait. And if it has to wait a year, it might wait a year. There might be a lot of movies like this. We already saw Fast 9 moved a year into the future

in order to secure the safety of a movie-going audience. And at some point, we're going to start having a conversation about no time to die, which is currently dated for November, potentially moving. And it's like, if the bond movie can move and fast nine can move, certainly the Chris Nolan movie can move despite him wanting to be the

movie that opens movie theaters. Um, I w let's talk specifically about tenant and just, just to wrap up this conversation conversation why tenant seems like both the best and the worst movie to to be in this experience to be used as a kind of political football about the state of movie theaters so on the one hand it does seem like the absolute best movie to reopen it's a big screen cinematic artist telling the kind of story that only he can. For better and worse, only Christopher Nolan can make a Christopher Nolan movie.

Even if you tried, you'd fail miserably. His thing is very specific to him. And we don't have a lot of filmmakers like him where when you see his name at the beginning of a movie, you go, oh, I'm'm in for something different i'm in for something exciting on the other hand based on the rules that we've learned over the last i would say 15 years of movie going this movie has a lot of red flags and it's not based on ip of any kind it's's an original story. It stars Robert Pattinson, profiled brilliantly, I thought, by her husband, Zach and GQ. I did too, but I'm biased. We're both biased, but that's a great piece.

I would encourage people to read it. Really the template for how to write about famous people during this perverse time in American history. But Pattinson, to his credit, I think is a great actor with interesting taste. And I always like to see what he's up to. Robert Pattinson is not technically a movie star. He has only been in successful movies that have Twilight in the title. And it's been eight years since he appeared in a movie that made more than $20 million worldwide. That's a long time. And so if he is the second build thing about Tenet after Christopher Nolan, that's a big burden. It is a big burden.

I have two pieces of information, or not even information, but insight that I would offer, not to quite rebut that, but to put what you just said in context. Though I think it is true. It's been a long time since Twilight. As you mentioned, my husband wrote that piece. I will say that that piece has been like wildly successful for GQ in a way that suggests that Robert Pattinson is quite famous. Now that is

different from being a person who gets people to go to your movies. But I do think that it is, that's an important data point that like Robert Pattinson is like a big deal. And then I interviewed our resident Generation Z pop culture expert, Kate Halliwell, about A, whether Robert Pattinson is famous and B, whether she would go see his movies. And she gave me this quote, which I thought was very spot on. She grew up with Twilight. And I thought that was like an interesting data point of someone to whom he was a really big deal.

And she was like, I have not seen his weird recent movies. I will see his new flashy movies, which I do think that people can understand the difference with all respect between The Lighthouse and Tenet and which movie is for them and which movie is maybe not as much for them. And both movies are for us here on the big picture, but I still think he has a low pull. That's all I'm saying. You might be right. We obviously know that after he makes Tenet, Robert Pattinson is going to be the Batman.

And there's some interesting synchronicity there between working with Christopher Nolan and then moving on to playing Batman. Pattinson, and he discusses this in, in Zach's piece about kind of making the decision to reintegrate into the, the movie star system and take on projects in which a lot of people will see him again. And that, that seems simultaneously calculated and a little bit, um, curious, you know, a little, a little bit, a little bit unmanaged. That seems like kind of the essence of his personality.

I was going to say. I'll believe it when I see it is sort of my point. And furthermore, Nolan is, as we said, the star of the movie in many ways. This will be a real test of his brand. Really the deepest test you could ever imagine because these are unreasonable circumstances and it's already unfair to him to the studio to pattinson to measure someone's career in light of the pandemic but it's a 200 million dollar original time saga crime movie i mean

you know it looks like miami vice has written by hg wells that's mean, it looks like Miami Vice is written by H.G. Wells. That's what the trailer looks like. And that is a huge risk. It's a huge risk for a studio. It's a huge risk for a filmmaker. I absolutely love that he takes risks like that. I think not all of his movies work for me. His early films are more successful than his later films in my mind. But it just seems like the opposite of what you should. What you need to do is open with a Spider-Man movie. You need to open with a movie where people are like, God, I got to fucking see the Spider-Man movie because I live for Spider-Man. We know that that works. Now, I'm not saying that that's necessarily good for movies, that we have to put that kind of a, you know, that much burden on some superhero movies, but they are the only

proven commodity right now. And I think you and I are also worried about what happens to movies if Tenet does go first and doesn't do as well as it needs to in order to make its money back for Warner Brothers. Because as you said, it is such a big risk. And Christopher Nolan is like a name, you know, IP in himself in terms of being one of the few people who can still make these giant budget original movie theater movies. And if that doesn't work, they will not make them anymore. They're already not making as many of them. And they are definitely going to not make as many of them now, given the budgetary and logistical restraints that are being

placed on the industry right now. And you just you stop taking risks when you don't have the same resources. And this is a risk. So we are concerned that if this doesn't perform exactly as Warner Brothers needs it to, that they just won't give Christopher Nolan as much money next time. And if they don't give Christopher Nolan money, they're not giving anybody money. That's the thing. I think he was the last person

who had this chance anyway. We know about... Who are the young, proven commodity filmmakers who can take on big projects? Rian Johnson, Denis Villeneuve. There's a handful, a very short list of people who a studio would trust with $150 million project.

Most of those projects need to be based on previously existing material. But the original movie, it's just, it's vanishing in this respect. You know, we talked about, we did an episode on Back to the Future

on the rewatchables this week. And Back to the Future was directed by robert zemeckis who had only made three movies up to that point and who was very well thought of and had it was coming off of a hit with romancing the stone and was a protege of steven spielberg he's not so different from christopher nolan i don't know 10 10, 15 years ago, maybe around the prestige. And it's impossible to imagine that a movie like Back to the Future could happen today in today's climate with a filmmaker who has that little experience. And the thing that is going to happen here is not that Christopher Nolan's career is going to suffer. Christopher Nolan's going to be fine. He's going to get, even if this movie bombs straight to hell, which it won't,

but if it did, he's still going to get to make 5, 7, 9, 12 movies as long as he wants to make movies because he's made 6 or 7 movies that will live in the minds of film fans forever. But it's the next Nolan who's screwed. It's the young woman or man

who wants to make big tentpole action or thriller or fantasy films, especially original films, that we just may never see again. And that sounds melodramatic, but I think it's true. I absolutely think it's true. I think part of the struggle has been people like us coming to accept that fact that is already a fact. A lot of this has kind of been decided and been decided before COVID and before recent events of the movie industry is changing. And this has exposed the tensions and perhaps accelerated some of the conversations. but we will not get many more Christopher Nolans. People just won't make movies like this anymore. And that it feels like a loss

to both of us. It really does. Let's pull back even further. Let's pull back away from Nolan and Tenet and July and just talk about the rest of the year in movies. Because if we're right, and I suspect that we are, the movies are not starting again in July. And they probably aren't even starting again in August. I'm speculating. That's not... No one's on the record saying that. I'm just speculating that September to me, on a gut level, based on what I know about the various industries and the people that I've talked to who work in tech and finance, September and October feels like when companies are going to be comfortable reopening. And I think the same will be true for movie theaters.

And then what does that mean for film festivals? The true engine of movie hype and really the igniter of so many of the conversations that you and I have on this show basically from the fall all the way through February, whenever the Oscars happen, we've already lost Cannes. So I was thinking specifically last night about what we lost with Cannes and what Cannes has meant to movies for the last couple of years. Last year, obviously, Cannes debuted two Best Picture nominees and the winner of Best Picture in Parasite, Once Upon a Time, also opened there. But just in the last couple of years, know for somebody like me who likes who cares about world cinema can is the place where you learn about new extraordinary exciting filmmakers or

old masters who get the biggest possible platform so if you just take the last two years of can of the can film festival you get no parasite no burning no atlantics no baccarau no ashes pierced white no shoplifters that's just a very short list of filmmakers who you know i don't i don't know how many american moviegoers were familiar with corietta before shoplifters you know that was his film was was elevated by winning the Palme d'Or. And not having that noisy and extravagant and ultimately sort of like glitzy and unnecessary platform, there's a loss that comes with not being able to learn about new films, new filmmakers.

And I already felt the culture of American movie going becoming more global. It's become more global because of Netflix, because their ability to watch foreign films there. It's become more global because of movies like Roma and now especially Parasite. And the Cannes Film Festival is probably the number one signifier

of that globalization. And if we don't have it, do people care as much about Kore-eda or Jia Shanke or, you know, any of the Li Changdong, like any of the great

foreign filmmakers that come to light because of these festivals? Like, I genuinely think we run the risk of taking a step back. For me, I think the real loss is in the the first time or the undiscovered or underrepresented filmmakers who really do

use these festivals as they get seen and someone says you got to check this out and and and careers are established or or followed i you know i do think, you're right that this is the economy and this is how we get, you know, parasite or portrait of a lady on fire. But we also, people did know who Bong Joon-ho was. People did know who Celine Sciamma was. And I, we're gonna have to, if we don't have the festivals rethink how we share and talk about and how people get to see all of these great works, especially internationally. But I think for filmmakers who have a following internationally,

which many of these people do, we can figure that out. The thing that is hard to figure out is people who are just trying to get a break. And that is honestly the most important part of film festivals if you're a person who's interested in cinema growing and changing and doing interesting things and having more original movies to talk about, which is what we've spent this whole podcast talking about. So I don't quite know how you solve for that. Yeah, it's unclear what's going to happen with these fall festivals too. It's unclear whether Telluride, Toronto, or Venice will happen. And if those don't happen, then the New York Film Festival takes on this new burden. And if that doesn't happen, then all of a sudden, that engine that we're talking about for the awards conversation,

for the discovery of new films, for the celebration of masters making The Irishman. Obviously, it was a New York Film Festival moment. And if those things don't happen, then certainly people will continue to see Martin Scorsese movies. I think if a Wes Anderson movie goes directly to streaming, a lot of people will watch it. He has a built-in audience. But it's not going to be the same.

And then there's going to be serious ramifications on award shows. You noted here that the Emmys are still on track, theoretically. There's a lot of non-information sharing about the Emmys. What is available about the Emmys right now is how they will be handling the quote, for your consideration season, where all live events and panels have been banned and people will be doing things online, but they're still focusing that energy towards a September 2020 Emmys in some capacity. I have not specified

what that capacity will be. I put the Emmys on here because I feel like the Emmys are a great stand-in for an awards show as everybody else sees awards shows. I'm like, you and I are way too invested in the Oscars. And I do think that the Oscars play a really different role in promoting movies and the movie industry than the Emmys do in television, just because like television is in people's homes and people watch it. And the Oscars are often used as a way to get people to go see movies because you do need that extra effort. But just in terms of like, they can have the Emmys or not in September. And I, as a person who just kind of casually watches TV, I like, I want everyone in television to have a, have a job. And I think it's important to raise awareness of it, but otherwise like the actual awards show itself, it can come or go for me personally

as awards show watcher. And I just mentioned that because I think there are casual Oscar viewers who possibly feel the same way. It's like it's not number one on the list of things that people are concerned about, even within the movie industry, because we have a lot of jobs to save. So how the Emmys proceed will be really instructive in a lot of different ways, but just also in terms of what we're fighting for. It's interesting. The absence of those four-year consideration events and the panels and the screenings is interesting when it comes to the Oscars.

The other thing that probably won't be happening in quite the same way are parties. Those parties and the moments when there's a lot of glad-handing, when movie stars and filmmakers get face-to-face interaction with Academy members in an effort to make them aware of the work that they've done and how much they would love it if someone would vote for them to win an award. If you take that stuff away, or if you make it virtual, it just changes what the Oscars are. And we talk all the time on this show about the veiled notions of justice when it comes to the Oscars and how we infrequently get what we want and how bizarre it was when Parasite winning all those awards happened just because it's so unusual. Now, honestly, one of the reasons that

Parasite won is not solely because it's a great film. It's because they ran a genius campaign and they put Bong Joon-ho in front of everyone in the academy and in every situation that he found himself in, interviews, parties, screenings. He was charming, thoughtful, deep, amusing. All the things that you need to be to make a moment and a movement. And if you don't have that, you don't have a win like that. And the same goes for a bunch of movies that have won in the past that we don't feel were as worthy. So I'll be curious to see if things continue in this way. If what is an Oscar movie, if what wins

changes. I've had a couple of people already ask me, well, the movie that deserves to win, win now? I don't think that's true because there's this sense of universal objectivity about greatness that does not actually exist. For everyone, your mileage may vary. There are some people who still think that Bohemian Rhapsody is a great film. Those people are nuts, but they believe it. But I do think that cutting through the mechanisms of promotion and the mechanisms of politics will be an interesting outcome. It's not guaranteed. I mean, we might be at Oscar parties, me and you, in December. That's in play. I don't see it operating in the same way that it did last year or 10 years ago. And so do you think that the Oscar movie

will be redefined? Yes, but not in some grand justice way. I think what you said is interesting and important. And the counterpoint to the conversation that we were having even about film festivals of filmmakers who don't have a great following might not get a chance to be discovered. but you can put everything online now and if we do move to a world where things are available then if you're really interested in seeing all of these movies or you're really interested in redefining what an oscar movie is it's like i don't want to say the playing field is being leveled because i don't think they're mailing out ballots to the whole world anytime soon like you and i will not be members of the academy but I do think everyone's access will be a bit easier because it will just all be online. And it will be interesting to see how Academy voters respond to that. It will be interesting to see how you and I respond to that. It will be interesting to see what gets seen and what

doesn't get seen. And even, you know, what's watchable at home to people and what's not both like literally and in terms of enjoying watching at home, it will certainly be different. I don't think that it means that, you know, it's only great cinema winning the Oscar from here on out. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be the case either. We're going to have to wait and see. What else? I mean, is there anything else about the way that movies are going to change because of these circumstances that we find ourselves in that is kind of scratching at you?

I wonder what you do when... Like, what will we do for four months if Tenet gets moved? And four months is optimistic, right? Yeah, and all of us, I mean, this has been a cute two months, right? Like you said, we've been watching a lot of old movies and we can continue to do that. And we're extremely lucky to live in a world and a time where we have access to these incredible libraries and we can catch up and discuss a lot of things that we wouldn't have otherwise.

As you noted, it is slightly more reflective of our personal tastes and interests than a collective thing, though it's been nice. I think that there have been a lot of people who want to go on weird erotic thriller journeys with us, still getting emails and feedback about that one. Thanks to everyone for sharing. But yeah, what are we going to do? Because that felt like a two-month experiment. I agree. I think that as far as our show goes, we'll be able to come up with ideas. June 12th is coming. And on June 12th, we just saw the trailer this morning for The Five Bloods. We're going to get The King of Staten Island. We're going to get films. More movies are going to streaming.

More movies like The Lovebirds opens this Friday. And that was going to be a movie that came out in movie theaters in April, I believe, through Paramount. It is now going to be a Netflix film. And so there's going to be stuff to talk about. We're going to get new movies. And I think that the studios have to put these movies in those places. It's just they don't feel that they can put movies like Tenet on a streaming platform.

So we'll be able to do that. We'll be able to come up with some ideas to talk about. To me, it's more like what will the industry do if it can only make 30% of its income for an entire year? I mean, that's unmanageable. Right. And I think that's what I was asking. You and I will just keep talking into a microphone until, you know, till they take them away from us. We'll be fine.

But I meant more about like, what does a movie become to people? And, you know, when once we move from this is kind of a fun experiment where you can watch Trolls World Tour if you really want to on demand. And we're all kind of in limbo here and we're waiting to see what's going to happen. In the meantime, we're like trying on new definitions of what a movie can be. And when we segue from the theoretical

to the kind of, okay, so this is how it's going to be for a while. And I'm very curious to see, will people seek out, continue to seek out more of those VODs? Will, you know, will there be anticipation? Will people just kind of go back to their TV

streaming ways that they were used to in their homes? Will there be anticipation for a digital release in three months? I don't know. I don't know either. I think the one thing that we can count on is that movies are going to start to look more and more like TV. It's already been happening for the last 10 years. It's going to continue to look more and more like TV. It's already been happening for the last 10 years. It's going to continue to happen. And I have a little bit of sadness about that. I have a little bit of frustration around the end of movie going as an event. And that's also going to be a slow dissolution over time, regardless of what happens with COVID-19. That makes me sad. But also, I'd rather have it than nothing you know i'd rather have the king of

staten island in my house than than no movie at all and so we'll try to we'll try to receive it honestly and and try to communicate it as communicate about it as sincerely as we can before we go i just wanted to say a couple things about uh we lost three people in the world of movies over the weekend which is very sad obviously there have been so many three people in the world of movies over the weekend, which is very sad. Obviously, there have been so many lives lost in the last several months. It's unclear if these deaths are even related at all to COVID-19, but we lost the great comic actor Fred Willard, fans of the Christopher Guest movies or Fernwood Tonight or many of the TV shows we've been watching for the last 30 years will be familiar with Fred. He's really one of the all time genius comic actors is a really beautiful

appreciation of his work and his oddity, uh, on the ringer.com that Rob Parvilla wrote. I would encourage people to check that out. He is his, my favorite of his performances is definitely best in show. I don't know if you have a favorite. Yeah.

Also best in show. Best in show is just a perfect movie. And his role as the color commentator at theator at the dog show is really, really great. And then Lynn Shelton, which candidly, I was just so devastated to hear this because she's a filmmaker who I never got a chance to interview. And I really would have wanted to talk to because her movies were so unique. And she came up out of a moment in independent film that produced Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig.

But she was a little bit older than some of those folks. And she took her time getting to the world of movies. She didn't make her first movie until she was in her mid-30s. And she made movies like Hump Day and Your Sister's Sister and Laggies. And her last couple of movies are really interesting. I think Outside In was from 2017 with ed falco and then last year sort of trust which we never talked about on the big picture which i've now just i regret because it's a really interesting film and she had an incredible ability with actors and the tone of her movies was was unlike any other filmmaker that I can remember.

And a lot of people have commented that it felt like she was, even though she was in her 50s, really just at the beginning of what she was starting to do as a director and as a filmmaker. And people now know that she was in a relationship with Marc Maron and that they were living together. And that's obviously tragic. And if you're a fan of Marc Maron, as i am like you know that he's been unlucky in love through the years and has had some personal tragedy and this the whole thing just sucks it just sucks that we don't get any more lynn shelton movies like i was just really upset about it yeah i mean you know it was sudden and a tragedy and i you know i thought mark maron

statement was so beautiful i'm i was a huge fan as well. And I also, you know, she also did a lot of TV work over the years. And I was just going back through like her IMDB and here was some, you know, she worked on new girl and the Mindy project, the masters of none, the good place, casual, uh, fresh off the boat glow Dickinson, the morning show. And those are all shows I really liked. And you just, you, you lost a very specific vision and taste that is not often represented in film and in movies. And it's a real tragedy. It really sucks.

We also lost Michel Piccoli this morning, which is really sad. He was in his 90s. He lived an incredible life. But he's really one of the key French actors of the 20th century. I mean, this is a guy who, um, appeared in so many incredible films, you know, contempt and Jean-Pierre Melville films and, um, diary of a chambermaid and, uh, discreet charm of the bourgeoisie and worked with Bunuel and, you know, worked with Costa Gavras and worked with like the European filmmakers of the sixties and seventies. And it was in so many fascinating movies. Your guy, Peter Ustinov, he appeared in Lady L. He appeared in Alain René movies,

Roger Vadim, like Agnes Varda. He really worked with everyone. He is one of the signature faces of European cinema of the 20th century. So three people who meant a lot to movies and just really ashamed to lose them over such a short period of time uh hopefully um we'll we'll we'll have more positive things to talk about in the future yeah i was gonna say this was was an emotionally um different podcast than what we've normally been doing but also i think you fitting to the circumstances. It's appropriate. I appreciate you participating in some of the morosity, Amanda. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. As I mentioned, the movie The Lovebirds is out at the end of this week. Maybe we'll talk about that some here on the podcast. Maybe we'll come up with some gimmicks to talk about around that movie. And hopefully we'll be able to come up with some more interesting concepts,

even if we don't get Ten 10 in July. Thanks, everybody.