Tenet has become an albatross around the neck of Warner Bros. What was once intended to be one of the studio’s biggest films of 2020 has been repeatedly pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was originally slated to open on July 17th before being pushed back to July 31st and then pushed again to August 12th before Warner Bros. decided to pull the film from its release slate entirely. Now Warners has a new strategy that involves releasing the film in international territories before opening the film in select U.S. cities.

Per an official statement from Warner Bros, “Today, Warner Bros. announced that ‘Tenet’ will open in over 70 countries worldwide starting on August 26. Major territories will include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The film will open in the United States over Labor Day weekend in select cities.”

I do love how this is an acknowledge that other countries are just better than the United States. They knew how to deal with a pandemic, addressed it appropriate, lowered the number of cases, and now they get a new movie. Meanwhile, everyone in the U.S. is wondering if they’ll be in a “select city” that gets to see the movie. And what about those who aren’t in “select city”? Do you travel to a place that has Tenet? Do you wait patiently for the film to arrive? And what makes any theater safe for distribution in the first place? And what happens after Tenet has opened? Sure it has no competition so it has the multiplex all to itself, but what comes after?

This all still feels ridiculous and unnecessary. Is Warner Bros. going to close down if they don’t release Tenet this summer? Will WarnerMedia collapse if Tenet gets pushed to 2021? I get that shareholders are fussy, greedy bastards who have no patience for things like “public safety”, but I have yet to see a single good argument from either the studio or the filmmakers that explains why this movie has to be released now. It’s asinine and completely ignore the reality that this virus doesn’t really care about your business plans.

From a business perspective, it will be interesting to see how this strategy plays out. Maybe other studios follow suit and start releasing their films internationally first while they wait in vain for the United States to get its shit together (the U.S. will not have its shit remotely together until January 2021 at the earliest). Maybe Tenet is a game-changer. Or maybe the folks behind the film have exhausted their patience and are forging ahead, consequences be damned. That always works out well.