As we wait and see if Christopher Nolan's TENET will pull off of its planned August 12, release date, the official runtime for the highly-anticipated film has been revealed and while it's shorter than a lot of Nolan's efforts, it's still going to be a lengthy stay at your local movie theater whenever they decide to open their doors.
TENET has an official runtime of 149 minutes and 59 seconds. That makes the film just shy of two and a half hours. This doesn't make TENET a short movie by any means but it does run about twenty minutes shorter than Nolan's INTERSTELLAR, which clocked in at 169 minutes. Both THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and 2008's THE DARK KNIGHT are also longer at 165 minutes and 152 minutes respectively. BATMAN BEGINS comes in at an even 140 minutes while INCEPTION is just a minute longer than TENET. If you're looking for Nolan's shortest movie, that distinction goes to DUNKIRK which comes in at a modest 106 minutes.
All this news about the runtime still doesn't mean TENET will arrive on its date as planned. As of Monday, California Governor, Gavin Newsom, listed movie theaters as one of the indoor activities that needed to close immediately due to the spread of COVID-19. Newsom didn't give a date that these establishments could reopen and that is a concern because Los Angeles County is a box office market that the studios need to be open in order to justify their big-budget efforts. Also of concern is New York City which also hasn't given a solid date for reopening their theaters. If these markets remain closed, I wouldn't be surprised if TENET and the other August releases made moves on the calendar.
I guess the big question is when we can go to the theater, will you want to mask up for a 149-minute movie? Will it be a little uncomfortable? I wonder how much of an inconvenience it will be for some moviegoers that they'll ultimately decide to wait for films to hit VOD instead of going to the theater. Moviegoing is definitely going to take on a whole new look once it restarts.
As of now, TENET is scheduled to hit screens on August 12, 2020.